Well, okay, not to pat myself on the back, but I do rise above those "base reasons." And, thankfully, I don't find myself alone in that. I've watched all of GOT at least once and most of it more than once, with a variety of people. I won't deny that there have been a few moments when the show indulges in the disappointingly familiar Hollywood trope of "let's make Character X even more egregiously mustache-twirlingly creepy, so that the audience can get a vicarious thrill when he meets some horrible end"... more noticeably so since the showrunners went past the available GRRM source material... but those are not the show's best moments by a long shot, nor ones I particularly enjoy. For the most part, however, the show has treated pain and death and their consequences (and related motivations) a lot more seriously than that.
And speaking of more serious topics...
Not quite sure how that's relevant here. The UFP is plainly not an attempt to force utopia on anyone; it merely offers it, and lets others choose for themselves. If you don't believe that most people, given a reasonable chance, will choose peace, prosperity, freedom, and self-realization, then you don't believe in the basic philosophical foundations Star Trek was built on, and I'm not quite sure how it would be possible to enjoy the show.
The thing it, peace doesn't need to be "achieved"... it's the default state for most human beings. Our evolutionary instincts toward "fight or flight," honed by the struggle to survive against natural threats, are moot in a civilized society; the vast majority of people are seldom if ever confronted by violence, and indeed will go to considerable lengths to avoid it. Only a tiny handful of psychopaths are ever "intent on subjugating or simply killing" anyone. War and violence are anomalies, regressions to obsolete behaviors, and most people have to be prodded, coerced, or brainwashed into participating in them.
Or as Jim Kirk put it in "A Taste of Armageddon"... "Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about... That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. ... We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers — but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today."
Indeed, even in the DSC prologue, it wasn't "Klingons" in general who intended to attack the Federation and provoke a war... it was just one religious fanatic and his small band of followers. Guilt by association (even for Klingons) is the kind of fallacy that leads to needless violence.
If ever there was anything close to a "just war," taking a stand against against fascism in WWII would be it... but nonetheless I wish Tom Brokaw had never come up with that insipid "greatest generation" tag. I have a fair amount of respect and sympathy for the people who lived through the Great Depression and Second World War, but that doesn't mean they were better people in terms of character than any who came before or after. And even in that generation, there was nothing inherently more noble or heroic about someone who served as a soldier than, say, someone who built a park for the WPA.
Most wars are not WWII. In most of them nothing is at stake except the self-interest of a few rich and powerful people (or a few fanatical ideologues) who point at others and say "you and him go fight." As General Smedley Butler famously put it, "War is a racket... conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many."
There is certainly nothing inherently heroic about the military, or those who enter it as a profession. More to the point, there is nothing admirable about the kind of authoritarian hierarchical thinking, alienation of the Other, valorization of coercive force, and similar ideological tropes that traditionally define the structure of military life. Suffice it to say that my abiding exemplar of the appropriate level of respect for military authority is Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H.
Opposing freedom of expression is another matter entirely from being skeptical of militarism, and as a diehard civil libertarian it is not something I would ever defend, on the basis of someone being "offended" or any other reason. However, I think you're straining at gnats while swallowing camels here. While there is undeniably and regrettably a political undercurrent these days (especially on some campuses) of the kind of identity politics that tries to clamp down on opposing views and shut them out, that's not a widespread phenomenon. Historically it has always been, and it remains today, those in power (as opposed to protesters) and particularly those on the political right (as opposed to the left) who are far more likely to suppress or punish ideas they find distasteful. Certainly, there is no reasonable doubt that the MU's "Terran Empire" is very much a creature of right-wing militaristic nationalism.
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