LogFAQs > #978988507

It's stated humans living in the Tau Empire have a better quality of life on average despite being hostile aliens to the Tau. The Imperium will genocide any alien, whereas the Tau will welcome them into their empire. And the Tau aren't good people. They're comparable to any extreme authoritarian government with heavy propaganda, it's just the Imperium is so bad, those humans living under the Tau end up having a better quality of life. Then you have truly independent humans like the Leagues of Votann (squats) that are if not good guys, are morally neutral and just want to live long and prosper. The only humans worse off than Imperium humans are the ones living on Chaos planets (usually as slaves or worse). The Horus Heresy era even gives us examples of humans living under relatively liberal systems of government only to get wiped out by the Crusade of the totalitarian Imperium (and we even have humans aware of, and less susceptible to, the forces of Chaos).

The Imperium is bad, the lore makes it obvious they are bad, and it's crazy that people keep trying to justify them.