- The Republic also seems to be very unethical with the clone army. Yes, a mass produced army makes sense to fight wars on a galactic scale. Yes, the clone army was commissioned without the Republic's knowledge. However, we never really see or hear about any volunteer or conscript armies, and nobody brings up the elephant in the room that the Republic is basically mass producing slaves and sending them out to die. The Separatists come off as more morally righteous as they employ robot armies rather than enslaving people, and there isn't really any reason why the Republic can't make their own robot armies.
Only in Disney. In the EU, while there was no formal Republic military, many member states had their own large, regional defense forces. All the Core Systems - Corellia, Kuat, Alderaan, Duros, Empress Teta, etc. - had large fleets of ships and standing armies of their own. Rim powers like Dac and of course, the Trade Federation among others also had powerful regional militaries. You could even compare them to the USA's National Guards.
The fleets - well, the loyalist ones, anyway - got merged into the reestablished Republic Navy when the Clone Wars started, while the individual armies had the effect of getting federalized. When the Republic became the Empire, the individual armies also got merged into the Imperial Army.
I'm not quite sure what kind of message Lucas was trying to send by having the protagonists of the Prequel trilogy trying to defend, well... a somewhat evil empire. I know that the overt lesson is to prevent the corruption of democracy, but it seems that the protagonists are blind to the fact that the Republic is already corrupt and evilish. It's rather confusing why the CIS are depicted as the antagonists. Seems like the only thing did was try to execute foreign spies/infiltrators in Attack of the Clones... which is standard policy for pretty much every country both IRL and in the Star Wars universe, right?
To quote a Republic partisan from SB, what do you expect the Jedi to do? Seize power in the Republic? Overthrow the Senate?
Apparently, there's this expectation the Jedi should be like the US military, i.e. completely apolitical, and should just obey the civilian government regardless of the ethics involved.
EDIT: There's also this perception that it doesn't matter if the Republic is corrupt or decadent or whatnot, simply because the Republic is the elected galactic government, and that's all that matters. Basically, even if the Republic acts like the Empire, it's perfectly alright, since they have an electoral mandate backing them up.