No, it's really so writers didn't have to work too hard to come up with storylines that a late 20th century TV audience would be able to understand.

It's a federation spaceship. They work for the government.

Bullshit. If ignorance of the rules is no excuse to avoid punishment, then knowledge of them cannot be either, because you should've known better.

This whole charade is merely a loophole to allow people to avoid saying "wow, this writer is really hot, therefore they are allowed to break the rules whenever they want to."

Yes because pumpkin spice is real and the WMDs were not.

No I didn't

Nice try. As if I’m going to tell you…

Never trust a woman with authority?

I was thinking it needed more excavators but I just changed my mind

Surely that won’t create any drama…

This is what we call a humblebrag

One day, they'll find out that in Japanese, wanpīsu simply means dress, and then everyone will go home in shame.