In Star Trek, the federal government is a force for good; in Star Wars, it is an evil leviathan.
The Trek experience is based on the assumption that humans will go beyond the apocalyptic impulse and emerge in future millennia as a federal force for good. As the recent Newsweek article put it: a Peace Corps on interstellar missions of goodwill.
In Star Wars the federal centralized government is seized by power hungry individuals who see themselves as the annointed to bring order to the universe.
Remember, Darth Vader's hand reaching out to Luke Skywalker, revealing that he's not just his father, but that by joining him they can create a Utopian society?
Stars Wars is the Star Trek Federation run amok - emerging as an evil empire, made more sinister and prolonged because of "a perverted science," as Churchill put it as he opened Britain's resistance to Hitler's regime.
That we believe Star Trek is "the vision of the annointed" - to borrow a phrase from Stanford scholar, Thomas Sowell - and not the dangerous Star Wars Empire, shows how naieve the 60's Generation actually is.
Star Wars is the Anti-Federalist impulse that gave us the Bill of Rights. It is that distrust of all federalist, central committee drives to consolidate power.
Distrust anyone dripping in Federation vision, and live quietly on Alderon with your families, because soon a federation will come and make everyone drink the wine of its fornication.
Then, the Death Star they build will be more powerful than the simple, mindless collective of the Borg.
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