The Day The Earth Stood Stil is part of what was actually a rather longstanding (and, in retrospect, surprising) tradition of LIBERAL authoritarianism in sci-fi, also seen in Things to Come, the movie version of H.G. Wells' work (which was even more nakedly authoritarian in its liberalism). As a liberal myself, who grew up long after the '60s, the idea that progressives were once the ones saying TRUST AUTHORITY was stunning to me at first (but then, with FDR, LBJ and Obama, there's precedent for it). Even now, though, I don't think liberalism will ever get back to that utopian idea of, "Well, we'll just build the perfect computer to run our world FOR us!"