Science Fiction

With precisely the plot drivers you mention.

That's why Heinlein doesn't drive me insane, although if he had gone into politics in real life (which he apparently contemplated doing) he might have mutated into an atheist version of Nehemiah Scudder himself.

And Niven doesn't drive me batty for the same reason: context.

And you don't have to bend reality too much for such libertarian or authoritarian or "Darwinian" notions to work, at least as fiction. For that matter, look at just about any action-adventure movie (of which there are thousands), and deconstruct its political or moral leanings, and you'll be depressed all over again. Sadly, alternate reality has a well known illiberal bias, and also features explosions and car chases.

On the other hand, I can't stomach Pournelle or Card (partly because they are distinctly lesser writers and weaker storytellers), precisely because the universes they create don't sustain their rather creepy notions how people ("people" in the broadest possible sense) can, should, and must manage to live with each other.

Crichton is pure story and whatever philosophical elements present just as shallow as everything else he churned out, so that even Disclosure, his most odious book, ends up being odious-lite.

For myself, I'll forgive a good storyteller a lot; an inferior storyteller, not much at all.