Kubrick, Liberalism, and Progressive Chewers.

Liberalism in what sense? The liberalism I'm familiar with demands certain individual freedoms, but makes no assumptions about base human morality.

I think it's difficult to categorize man as essentially good or bad, being as how we really have no point of comparsion; the very concept of morality was created by us, and will be twisted according to each society's needs and preferences.

At any rate, government will always be handled by man (until our robot overlords show up, naturally), and as such I think the motivation behind liberalism is that the more information is shared, and the more people get to take decisions in group, the more likely it is that they'll come to the right decision. I would agree with you that this is often a faint and desperate hope, but what I think can be said is that self-proclaimed leaders and benevolent dictators almost always create more brutal and corrupt regimes than democracies do - which when you think of it only reinforces the "humans are evil" side's argument, in that anyone with too much power becomes a tyrant.

That being said, I think liberalism frequently worries about the tyranny of the majority - think of such stereotypically progressive issues as hate crime legislation, funding for the arts, even health care to some extent. All these rely on the idea of the state having to intervene to protect a minority.

Finally - in what way does libertarianism not rely on the ideas of individual freedom, the free exchange of ideas and people being basically decent??

I thought Kubrick didn't necessarily love or hate people. His films have a sterile approach to human relationships. I never saw this as cynicism, or that he distanced himself to scorn people because his characters make a lot of bad choices and must therefore be 'bad' themselves. Instead, he distanced himself from moralizing about anything his characters did, the opposite of what you're suggesting. Kubrick's movies provoke the intellect, not the heart strings. Both conservatives and liberals moralize, except the former is counter-productive; liberals want to include more people.

You can say people are 'bad' with equal legitimacy as saying they're inherently 'good'. But I don't see how either judgment must confer good decision-making onto yourself. People make lots of bad choices, like giving the elites the people's money and hating people for being gay.

I agree with the latter, but not necessarily the former. I think there's a very critical, possibly cynical, possibly scornful, often sardonic streak in his films. I think the Kubrick Glare alone holds all these things.

So, I'm conservative and the Republicans are liberal? That's...odd.

But they also want smaller government, are against any government insertion into thier right to own guns or any infringement on their personal/business rights.

Meanwhile I'm a socialist because I don't believe humans are a bunch of really nice guys who'll do good in the long run so we need the government
to ensure that all people are looked after.

Basically, I think you're using way too rigid or way too old school definitions. You can't call Kubrick liberal simply because he believes that people are good.

My bad. Regardless you can't label him as a ocnservative simply because he thinks people are bad.

So, you're saying I'm a conservative because of who you believe defines the terms.

And right there is exactly why I'm having issues with this whole thread. I hate the utility of labels. As soon as we decide that A belongs to B belief and define A as B we have stopped discussing them as complex humans and dismiss them. To what purpose does it serve if we do decide that Kubrick is a libertarian. Are you suggesting that his libertarian, if that is the case, beliefs influence all of his film work? Or that we can only discuss his work in terms of his belief?

Just FYI, John Locke, arguably the most influential of enlightenment philosophers as regards the initial founding of American government, was a proponent of the idea of society as a tempering force in which man's selfish impulses might be tempered/diluted. He was a 'liberal,' but believed in the co-existence of man's best and worst impulses. He drew this view, in part, from Hobbes.

Government wasn't a corrupting force to him. It was a force with the potential to limit corruption.

Your analysis of Rousseau's beliefs in this regard is....spotty, Cuchulain. Rousseau's advocacy of the Social Contract doesn't betray a belief that government/society is inherently corrupting. It's far more accurate to state that Rousseau saw society as a necessity, meant to again temper the 'primitive condition' of a law and morality-free world.

I think you're way off-base re: liberalism. Practical liberalism is predicated on basic individual and market freedoms, as opposed to presuppositions about the social-moral-psychological nature of mankind. Bear in mind: all dialogue in modern western society is actually occurring within a liberal paradigm; even most modern conservatives are liberals — they still argue from a base of post-enlightment individual freedoms. Really, aside from fringe groups, the entire spectrum of western politics is liberal.

What you're really asking about is moral cynicism versus moral freedom, which is a dialogue that can occur in both liberal and feudal contexts.