The Rebels really had it wrong, you know. While the Empire was superficially totalitarian, it was actually a surprisingly direct governance system — one that would very likely have slid into representative government in just a few generations — and overall provided a clearly superb technology and peacekeeping structure. It had far more in common with Rome than most people seem to recognize.

The Rebels, on the other hand, dealt with Received Truth rather than empirical process for discovery; had inferior technology and were probably considerably more prone to diseases (most of the time they lived in vine-encrusted ancient monoliths, mud huts, etc.) and didn’t even believe in democratic principles; their ruling caste were not conventional beings but were instead “divinely” (or midi-chlorianically) ordained entities whose value lay not in individually-achieved merit, but accident of birth.

Luke killed thousands and thousands to help his girlfriend-sister get her fuckin’ Prom Queen crown back. How very noble.

Besides, the Empire had much cooler ships.