Fine, I'll admit you are right. Unfortunately, this is completely unrelated to the original argument I was making... about 2 pages ago. I'll try to make it crytal clear so you don't procede to beat around the bush and prove me wrong:P
This is really ironic given that I have repeatedly implied I would be favoring a benign dictatorship, but apparently people consider democracy synonymous with quality of life. I guess Federation Membership requires democracy... which is odd given the overwhelming power of the military in the Federation.
Off topic, but how common are mind control devices in Star Trek?
Anyway, you have six options to deal with the natives.
1 You don't let anyone on or off.
Downside- you have to provide ships to enforce it AND the planet remains a shit hole. People die and suffer due to your inaction.
2 Don't intervene.
Upside- needs no ships or any other costs.
Downside- slavers, pirates, and the planet goes down the tubes into warlordism.
3 Limited trade
Upside- you earn money and get their resources.
Downside- Uninteneded side effects. Central authorities collapse as trade goods are made into weapons... unless they are monopolized by the upper class in which case you help make the society more caste like.
4 Puppet state
Upside- Simple and controlled way to attempt to change the planet.
Downside- Everything you have been yelling about.
5 All at once
Upside- Simple.
Downside- total societal collapse and the need for about 40 thousand to 40 million occupation troops.
6 Genocide
Upside- Solves problem
Downside- Just a wafer thin slice of your soul. That and people finding out about it.
On the subject of democracy, I'm pretty sure you can find a democratic puppet state. After all, they aren't that rare.
As for this
What shitful rubbish you do spew. What is at issue is whether the culture in question actually develops into an advance society by going through the painful growing process entailed in both its technological and social development. Simply give a culture still trapped in primitive mindsets and taboos advanced technology, and it will far more likely use it to wipe itself out. Stage-manage their development every step of the way, and they never become a mature, independent society because they never learn the lessons entailed in that long and painful process. It may be ugly, but the alternatives are worse. Even simply leaving them alone entails the risk that they will still find a way to destroy themselves, but at least their own development is not pre-empted by interference from above, no matter how well-meaning it may be.
I'm pretty sure the concept of culture was invented to side step this process.
Also
This is sort of why cultural meddling, no matter how well-meaning, no matter how carefully the plan was thought out, is far more likely to achieve the opposite of what the intended object was to begin with, with varying levels of disaster in the offing.
So basically, according to you, the best thing to do is let people kill themselves... rather than change things which will cause people to kill themselves. At least in my method, people will die faster and in a significantly shorter amount of time. It took Europe centuries to industrialize and at a horrific human cost. Attempts after them went significantly faster and were less bloody.
I'm sure you will have an angry rebuttal to my mocking of your ethics and changing the goal posts. I can't see how you can defend it though.
Or the fact that "spreading democracy" only became our rationale after the first 4. 
And US style democracy isn't what I am aiming for- it isn't the only kind either (parliamentary, virtual, etc). Given the Bajorans are theocratic and let them in, I'd say the UFP is flexible.
