A Liberal's Manifesto

Disclaimer

I no longer stand by this version of "A Liberal's Manifesto" for reasons explained in this post. This is just a way for people to look up the original and assess my critique of it while I work on crafting a new one. If you want to have the whole Substack experience, you can also access it with this snapshot.

Structure

  1. Purpose: Explaining why I'm doing this
  2. The big Problems: Outlining some key issues with the world.
  3. Competing Solutions: Steelmanning the conservative and progressive solution.
  4. Shortcomings: Laying out the flaws with those solutions and how liberalism is better.
  5. Addressing illiberalism: Tearing into illiberal ideologies.
  6. My Beliefs: Some key political beliefs that I extracted out of my journey.
  7. Conclusion
  8. Appendices
    1. Influences
    2. Q&A

Purpose

I can still remember getting into politics some years ago. After trying out several ideologies and seeing which one fits my worldview best, I’ve settled on Liberalism.

Like everyone, I see a lot in the world that isn’t going smoothly, and it took me a while to figure out why. This manifesto is the result of that process—a case for Liberalism not just as an idea, but as a necessity. With my limited resources, I’ve tried to put together the strongest possible case for why things are going wrong, how illiberalism fuels those problems, and why it’s worth fighting.

The purpose of this manifesto is to collect my thoughts in one unified text. Some parts have appeared before in earlier essays, but putting them together in one place—with new sections for context—lets me flesh out the bigger picture.
I also hope that for anyone going through a similar process of questioning and searching, this can serve as a kind of map—not a set of answers, but a way to think more clearly about what matters and why.

So here we go.

The big Problems

At the core of society is a challenge: people want different things. And those wants aren’t random—they’re shaped by the world around them. Our environment—economic, cultural, geographic—forms what we need, what we fear, and what we fight for. A farmer in a drought-hit region, a tech worker in a booming city, and a refugee fleeing war don’t just have different interests—they were built by different realities.

To push those interests forward, we form groups. That’s how politics starts—people banding together to make themselves louder. But when groups collide—and they always do—conflict follows. Not because humans are naturally hostile, but because the world splits us up before we even meet.

So the big question is this: how do we deal with conflicting interests in a way that keeps the peace, holds legitimacy, and helps us adapt to new challenges?

If we get that wrong—if we don’t have systems that can absorb and manage conflict—the consequences don’t stay theoretical. People start feeling ignored, betrayed, humiliated. And once enough people believe that peaceful engagement is pointless, someone eventually decides to escalate. That’s not a fringe phenomenon. It’s what happens when real disagreements are left to rot.

And those disagreements aren’t rare. They’re everywhere:

These aren’t just disagreements—they’re the friction of colliding realities. And if you don’t have a system that can handle that kind of friction, you burn.

And this is where we’re going off the rails. Right now, we’re drifting toward systems that don’t just fail to resolve conflict—they feed on it. They reward outrage, punish compromise, and treat every disagreement like a personal attack. That would be dangerous even in a stable world. But we’re not in a stable world. We’re dealing with:

Competing Solutions

Humanity’s been at this for a while. We’ve faced existential problems before—and solved more of them than we tend to remember. Out of that long process, two instincts have consistently emerged to guide how we deal with broken systems: conservatism and progressivism. These aren’t just political identities. They’re recurring tendencies—different ways of approaching change, order, and moral responsibility.

Not all responses to crisis fall within these lines. Some reject the game entirely— I’ll get to those later. But first, I want to be fair to the traditions that actually try to solve problems inside a shared reality.

Before I argue for liberalism as the most resilient framework, I want to give both of these instincts their due. I’ll lay out the strongest cases I can make for each—because even if I disagree with parts of them, they deserve to be understood on their best terms.

Steelmanning Conservatism

Conservatism is not just a political stance—it is a necessary function within a healthy society. Human beings are evolutionarily inclined to fall into two broad categories: those who push for innovation and those who seek to preserve what already works. Both are inherently valuable. Anyone who fails to recognize this dynamic is lacking in epistemic humility.

At its core, conservatism defends the accumulated wisdom embedded in longstanding institutions, traditions, and cultural practices. These are not arbitrary relics of the past but the result of generations of trial and error. They offer continuity, identity, and a buffer against chaos. While no institution is flawless, tearing down these structures without a deep understanding of their function often leads to unintended—and sometimes irreversible—harm.

The conservative instinct is shaped by a hard-earned skepticism of utopian promises and revolutionary overreach. History is littered with examples of societies that, in pursuit of lofty ideals, dismantled the very foundations that sustained them—only to end up with violence, tyranny, or dysfunction. Change is not inherently good. Sometimes, the drive to solve one problem can create ten more.

Part of the danger lies in the fact that many today take the benefits of modern institutions for granted. It’s easy to critique the flaws of democracy, the justice system, or capitalism, without recognizing the relative peace, prosperity, and order they’ve helped provide. When radical critiques dominate, there’s a risk of discarding what works in pursuit of abstract ideals, without fully understanding what will take their place.

Finally, conservatism argues that prosperity is not sustainable without a shared sense of purpose. Whether that’s rooted in religious faith, cultural heritage, or a commitment to the flourishing of civilization itself, humans need a guiding vision. Without one, prosperity becomes directionless. And if we deny that prosperity is valuable—or fail to define what it's for—then what reason do we have to pursue it at all?

Some people that make this case well include Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson, which I encourage you to listen to.

Steelmanning Progressivism

Progressivism plays a crucial role in the functioning of any healthy society. Just as some people are wired to protect what works, others are driven to challenge what’s broken. Both instincts are evolutionarily ingrained and equally vital. To ignore this dynamic is to misunderstand the nature of human progress—and to lack epistemic humility.

At its core, progressivism is a moral impulse toward improvement. It holds that the status quo is not sacred. Our institutions, traditions, and cultural norms must be continuously re-examined—not because all change is good, but because no system is beyond critique. Without that critical lens, we risk entrenching injustice and allowing suffering to persist in plain sight.

Progressivism is rooted in a simple but profound idea: people deserve better. In a world with staggering inequality and systemic barriers, it is not enough to accept things as they are. These injustices do not exist in isolation—they compound and cascade, affecting lives in deeply interconnected ways. If suffering is avoidable, then allowing it to continue is not just a failure of policy, but a failure of moral imagination.

Opposition to progress often masquerades as wisdom, but it can just as easily be cowardice—a refusal to confront uncomfortable truths. Some cling to familiar systems not because they work, but because they are familiar. In doing so, they dismiss real, present suffering as the price of stability. But this complacency breeds alienation. When people feel abandoned by the current order, they don’t always become enlightened reformers—they become radicalized, sometimes violently so.

Progressivism demands the courage to question, to imagine, and to act. It is a call to build a better future.

Some people that make this case well include Adam Something (for starters), Slavoj Žižek and Bernie Sanders, which I encourage you to listen to.

Shortcomings

The arguments I laid out above are valid—in theory. But that’s the catch: they represent idealized versions of how these ideologies are supposed to work. In practice, the movements that rally around them often fall short—or actively betray their own values.

I genuinely respect conservative thought. Its emphasis on caution, continuity, and stability is vital. I agree with many of its core principles. But too often, those principles are twisted into cover for reactionary politics. What should be a sober defense of order becomes a platform for bigotry, inertia, and scapegoating. Instead of addressing real problems, conservative movements frequently retreat into nostalgia and denial. That refusal to adapt has had real consequences: the Republican Party gave us Trump; the ÖVP helped normalize the FPÖ. Conservative institutions claim to uphold stability, but more and more, they incubate the chaos they claim to resist.

Progressivism speaks to something else I care deeply about: the belief that suffering should be reduced, and injustice confronted. But in practice, much of modern progressivism seems less interested in solving problems than in moral posturing. What started as a drive for justice has, in too many places, become a competition for victimhood and moral superiority. The result is a culture of purity tests, virtue hierarchies, and public shaming. Ironically, it often turns inward—attacking its own allies for being insufficiently righteous when they compromise to achieve pragmatic change. When progressives try to bring these ideas to the broader public, they too often rely on vague moralism and frame every disagreement as proof that the other side is evil. That’s not persuasion—it’s manipulation. Worse, the oppressor–oppressed lens gets applied to everything, flattening complexity into a simplistic morality tale and letting people bypass actual thinking.

That’s where liberalism comes in.

Liberalism doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. What it offers is a system—imperfect, but self-correcting—for reconciling competing visions of the good. It tries to harness the best of conservatism and progressivism through open debate, institutional stability, and democratic competition. And by doing that, it also checks their worst instincts. Progressivism’s moral urgency gets tempered by structure; conservatism’s love of order gets pressured by reform.

This doesn’t mean liberalism can be endlessly bent to suit either side. It has limits. It needs to sustain itself, or it collapses. And that’s the problem: not every ideology is compatible with liberalism. Some reject it outright—not as a flawed system, but as an obstacle to be torn down. That’s what we’ll look at next.

Addressing illiberalism

As we've seen, liberalism is a system that can contain disagreement—it thrives on it. But not all ideologies are compatible with that structure. Some aren’t interested in participating—they want to dominate. These are the ideologies I consider illiberal: worldviews so corrosive that, once let in, they don't just disagree with liberalism—they try to destroy it.

There are multiple ways to be illiberal, I’ve picked three of the most widespread forms, explained why they all suck, and then broken each one down in more detail.

Common Problems

The most common ways of being illiberal today are by being a communist, a libertarian, or a fascist. Yeah, they seem diametrically opposed—but they share some crucial traits. First off, to seriously buy into any of them, you need to be spectacularly arrogant. You have to believe that your worldview is so airtight that every other ideology is either idiotic or actively malicious. That kind of certainty exists elsewhere too, but illiberal ideologies seem to require it. It’s baked into the mindset: I’m right, everyone else is deluded.

I know that feeling—I used to be in that phase. I’ve also listened to enough of these lunatics talk to spot the pattern. That’s why I’m not interested in giving them the benefit of the doubt. They sure as hell wouldn’t give it to me.

Beyond the arrogance, what really unites these ideologies is the belief that the current system is fundamentally broken and needs a complete overhaul. What they seem to miss are its benefits—and how their solutions stack up against it.

Libertarians

I’ll start with libertarians because I used to be one for 2–3 years. The core belief here is that society improves as individual freedom increases, and that any attempt to restrict that freedom is just the establishment trying to keep you down. It’s a worldview that puts “freedom” on a pedestal, as the one true virtue everything else should serve.

What it misses completely is the concept of collective freedom. Your freedom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For you to be free in a meaningful way, someone else might have to give something up. That’s where rules and institutions come in—to make sure one person’s “freedom” doesn’t turn into another person’s burden.

Without that balance, what you get isn’t freedom—it’s power. And power ends up replacing structure. That’s not a recipe for stability. It’s a free-for-all dressed up as idealism.

Communists

The biggest flaw communists make is confusing noble goals with infallible methods. They assume that if you disagree with how they plan to get to a goal, you must oppose the goal itself.

Say they want to eliminate poverty by abolishing private property. If I say that’s not going to work, I’m not suddenly cheering for poor people to starve. But they often act like I am. That mindset is toxic.

Worse, it’s arrogant in a very specific way: it assumes not only that you’ve identified all the problems of the world, but also that you’ve found the perfect solution. That’s delusional. Reality is messy. Facts are infinite. So are interpretations of those facts. Not all interpretations are equal, obviously—some lead to better outcomes than others—but communism’s track record is straight-up bad.

Major communist projects either collapsed under their own weight—see the Soviet Union’s stagnation and succession disasters—or survived by becoming capitalist in practice, like China. If your ideology either fails or mutates into the thing it hates most, how can you still claim you’ve got everything figured out?

Fascists

Fascists are in the same boat. Every real-world attempt has ended in human misery, instability, and war. And yet, somehow, there are still people who think the solution to social division is to hand full control to one all-powerful leader who decides who counts as “us” and who’s an enemy.

This doesn’t solve the problem of balancing interests. It replaces balance with force and labels dissent as treason. That doesn’t unify society—it atomizes it. It didn’t work then, and there’s no reason to believe it would now.

My Beliefs

Now that I’ve laid out what I oppose, it’s time to be clear about what I stand for—what I advocate within the liberal tradition:

Conclusion

Liberalism is our best bet. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s the only system that treats disagreement as something to be managed, not silenced. The alternatives demand purity, submission, or revolution. Liberalism demands balance—between progress and tradition, freedom and structure, order and dissent. That balance isn’t just a political formula. It’s the only credible way to face chaos without becoming part of it.

Appendices

Influences

For the record: I don’t endorse anyone’s views unless I say so explicitly. These are simply voices I’ve engaged with—some shaped my thinking, others clarified what I reject. For context: I’m trilingual—I speak Czech, German, and English—so the list of influences below includes figures who operate in all three languages.

Q&A

Disclaimer: These ideas are not to be seen as my absolute unchangeable take, everything written in this section is written with lower conviction than the rest of the Manifesto.