Part of that comes from the fact as to who was crewing Galactica at the time of the holocaust of the 12 colonies. Galactica was reaching the end of its service in the Colonial Fleet and was about to be turned into a museum. The crew was mostly composed of old warhorses near retirement (Adama and Tigh) and young crewmen getting some experience before transferring onto a modern warship (Cali, Dee). This was not a front-line Battlestar, like Pegasus.
The President, Laura Roslyn, was the Secretary of Education and only became President when the rest of the government was wiped out.
That's the context of the series- the war is over and the humans already lost. This is a fleet of refugees trying to escape.
Which houses even more desperate lunatics from the fringe.