The Empire, for most people, is more free than the corrupt, socialist bureaucracy of the Federation.
How much do your people pay in taxes? Around 40-50%? Do you know what the serfs of ancient medieval Earth paid? 18%, and that was considered pure oppression. Let's face it, half of your labor is effectively slave labor with your tax rates. You get no pay for half your work. That's half-slavery for every man and woman in the Federation. Slavery, as evil as it is wherever it is practiced, is at least statistically obscure in the empire, and at least there are contracts that limit it and make it a mutual agreement for many, if not all slaves.
Any wholesale enslavement of a people is evil, I strongly disagree with Patreus's actions. But that was 33,000 people, how many hundreds of millions can seek liberty in the Empire that they would not be able to have in the Federation?
If we can manage to abolish slavery, there will be nothing left for you incompetents to demonize us with, and your illusion of freedom will become ever more transparent.
I had the misfortune of growing up in the Federation, I know it better than you think. I chose the Empire.