Firstly, you aren't free to do absolutely anything you wish, that would be anarchy. In order there to be a civilized society, there needs to be laws, regulations and a governmental body to enforce these laws and regulations. If there were no repercussions to anything that you did, things would go very bad very fast.When people talk about freedom, they don't mean absolute freedom like in anarchy, but more often than not political and social freedom, where you are free to practice your own faiths, beliefs, practices and whatnot without fear of repercussions.
Herein lies the biggest problem of the Federation in my opinion.We may have the social, political and religious freedoms on paper, but the reality of things can be much different, especially in the land of politics. More often than not, Gallente show extreme amounts of hostility towards the Caldari, which is often shown in the media, entertainment and simple discussions. For instance, in media and in entertainment products like movies, games and literature, Caldari are often portrayed as the "bad guys", people who are truly bad with no redeeming factors to them at all. They're the greedy corporate bastards who care of nothing but ISK.
Reality however, is much different. While megacorporations are the core of the Caldari State, the finding principles of the State are not of ISK, but of hard work and patriotism. In Caldari society, an individual is born to a family who works for a megacorporation. When you grow up, you work for this megacorporation and when you have your own kids, they will also work for this megacorporation.
You, your corporation and the State are one and the same. Caldari society is close-knit, the needs of the community, aka. the corporation, are put ahead of the needs of the individual. The CEOs and other higher ranked members of the corporation may live better off than the average worker, but everyone's needs are taken care of to benefit the corporation. Even the lowliest of janitors has a home, food, education and everything needed to care of himself and his family sufficiently.
While Caldari can perform morally questionable acts in order to benefit their corporation, they are not doing for just ISK. ISK is merely the catalyst to benefit the corporation, not the end goal. The mindset of the need of the community outweighing the need of the individual, and the capitalism were significant factors in letting Caldari become the formidable empire it is right now. If you really wanted the "bad guy" image popular media has portrayed the Caldari to be, take a look at Gallentean corporations like Quafe.
Popular media often shapes what the general community thinks of a subject, and due to the huge amounts of media portraying the Caldari as bad, and the government propaganda that was rampant during the war has shaped the general Federation consensus to be that the Caldari are evil and need to be destroyed. Opinions that show the benefits of the State, or even support it, are often frowned upon, and at one time were punishable by exile.
Then there's the racism that is often discussed within the Federation, which includes not just the State, but everything not considered as "Gallente". Intaki and Jin-Mei families, or immigrants from other empires, are often pressured to meld into the mismatch of various different habits and cultures that is Gallente. Habits and people that are considered odd or unnatural, usually mark these foreign families as outsiders, shunning them sometimes publicly even. Minmatar have often complained about this, and if this is reported on such a large scale, there must be some truth to it at least. Don't even get me started on the state of the Intaki homeworld and their place within Gallente society, which largely goes unreported.
It is often said that democracy is the ultimate best way to run a government. People vote for representatives to represent their issues, and these representatives discuss among one another to decide what to do that benefits the majority of the people. The problem here lies, is that compromises aren't made that often, which only leaves the majority pleased and leave behind the minority, which might still have a valid opinion to how things should be run. And another problem with democratic elections is that they are often popularity contests than actual ways for people to represent the needs of the community they appeal to.
Politicians often make promises for what they are going to do when or if they get elected, which are often very grand and broad in descriptions. And when these politicians eventually get elected, they forget these promises completely, as they are often impractical to keep, or even impossible. They made those promises just to appeal to the community and help get votes.
This may not really be the fault of the politicians, as usually the common people are often ignorant of what is and is not possible to within a government. That is why people who promise them what they want, not what they actually need and is realistic to accomplish, get the votes of the majority and then cause all sorts of problems later down the line. I'm not saying that we should all suddenly convert into a monarchy or something like that, I'm merely pointing out that the democratic system isn't as good as many people portray it to be.
Freedom might be a nice concept that Gallente often use to promote their ideals, but more often than not they fail to see the issues that their empire has, instead remaining blind and continuing to spout their ignorant views of the evil Caldari State and the perfect Gallente Federation, electing corrupt politicans into important roles in elections that are essentially popularity contest. All this sums up to the statement that the Federation isn't perfect, nor the best government in New Eden.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ