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Christian Heiens 🏛

@ChristianHeiens

Sep 4

I promised a steelman of Liberalism, and here it is.

Liberalism is the political philosophy that defends the freedom of the individual against tyranny, whether in the form of kings or the mob.

There are four essential principles that make up Liberalism:

1) Individual Liberty

Every person is born with rights that are not allotted by the state, but are rather self-evident and granted by God or Nature. These include freedom of speech, the right to worship however they please (if at all), to own property, and to associate freely with others in a system of voluntary contract without coercion from the state.

The role of the state is not to define the good life, but to protect the individual's right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, provided they are not infringing on the rights of others.

Nor is this a comprehensive list of individual freedoms, either. There are others that our founding documents recognize under the 9th and 10th amendments. The lack of a codified freedom does not mean the lack of freedom itself.

2) The Rule of Law

Power must not be arbitrarily wielded by tyrants. No one wants to live under a Caligula or a Stalin. Accordingly, authority has to be bound by a codified list of rules that even the powerful must respect and obey.

We call this codification a Constitution, a system of Checks and Balances, and an institutional framework that protects the rights of all minorities, even the individual, against both the power of the state as well as the will of the majority.

Ultimately, the Law itself must rule over society, not the will of a single powerful individual or faction.

3) Equality Before the Law

Liberalism does not promise equality of outcomes, but equality of treatment. No one is born into a higher or lower legal status. Whether rich or poor, man or woman, young or old, citizen or immigrant, each person deserves equal protection and due process under the law.

Justice is blind, and in place of the old aristocracy of blood, liberals recognize a meritocracy of talent and skill.

4) Political Pluralism and Tolerance

A liberal society is a marketplace of ideas, not the gulag of totalitarian states or the throne and altar of absolute monarchies. Disagreement is not a threat to be crushed, but a means to test out new ideas and discover what works.

And instead of adjudicating those disagreements by the sword, Liberalism promotes a republican or democratic form of government that allows all citizens to engage in a process of open debate and dialogue, and to live peacefully alongside others with different worldviews.

Liberalism holds that the state should not impose a single moral or religious doctrine or worldview, but should instead protect the rights of all. This is what it means to have a truly pluralistic and tolerant society. "Tolerance" does not imply approval. It means resisting the urge to coerce those whom you cannot convince.

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As a former Classical Liberal myself, I believe this faithfully articulates the Liberal worldview in a way that does not constitute a strawman. And it doesn’t end with these four principles either. Liberalism has been the most successful engine of human freedom and flourishing in history.

It overthrew monarchy, built constitutional governments, ended slavery, expanded civil rights for millions who never enjoyed a say in how their own government works, raised billions out of poverty through free markets, created societies where political dissent isn’t punished with prison or death, and outlasted the twin totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century (Fascism and Communism).

If there is any ideology that deserves to claim the mantle as humanity’s final stage of political development, it is Liberalism.

So how could I and millions of others possibly oppose any of this? And not just oppose it out of habit or birth, but walk away from it after once proudly calling ourselves Liberals?

I will do my best to explain why in this thread below. This is by no means a comprehensive set of objections (that would take an entire book), but the summary is this:

"The Postliberal Right does not deny that Liberalism was born as a revolt against tyranny. We reject it because it has become a new and more nefarious form of tyranny that wears the mask of human rights and freedom while dissolving the necessary foundations for the very freedom and prosperity that Liberalism claims to cherish."

There are a lot of Classical Liberals who will likely still say, "You're setting up a strawman because I'm a Classical Liberal and I do not agree with Progressivism."

These people are further up the mountain, and because they themselves haven't fallen down the slope that lies in front of them, they believe it doesn't exist.

But it does. Just because they personally haven't embraced Progressivism does not mean their worldview doesn't logically lead to Progressivism.

So how does this happen?

Let's start with the first principle.

Liberalism begins with the idea that the individual is the fundamental unit of society. He is sovereign. He may speak, believe, act, and live however he chooses, just as long as he doesn't violate another person's rights to do the same.

But what happens when two fully liberated individuals fundamentally disagree about the nature of truth? Or of morality? Or of reality itself? What happens when it's more than just two people, but instead millions? Or tens of millions? Or half of the entire country?

Liberalism has no metaphysical foundation to adjudicate those disputes. It doesn't recognize any higher truths that cannot justify themselves in liberal terms. This means it has no telos beyond individual self-actualization and no moral framework to appeal to beyond consent as defined by contract law.

And so, over time, it MUST expand the definition of rights and liberty to include not only freedom from coercion, but also freedom from ALL forms of arbitrary power and unchosen obligations imposed upon them.

This is how we got the litany of Progressive "positive rights". Women's Rights, Worker's Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Immigrant Rights, the Right to Housing, the Right to Healthcare, a man's "Right" to be called a woman, a child's "Right" to mutilate themselves, a refugee's "Right" to enter our country and be put up in a hotel by the taxpayer, and so on.

Not all Classical Liberals, or even a majority of them for that matter, voted for these things. Few still will have a problem with inherited traditions, families, religions, nations, or biological realities...but someone else eventually will. And they will appeal to the Classical Liberal's own moral logic to demand liberation from the very things Liberalism itself cannot fully justify.

Liberalism began by rebelling against very legitimate and blatant examples of tyranny, such as a cruel king or vicious dictator, but it eventually ended in a rebellion against the "tyranny" of "assigned sex at birth."

Many Classical Liberals (especially ones that are personally socially conservative) object to this and say they don't support the Progressive insanity of the Great Awokening. Granted. But Liberalism itself cannot say "No" to these things, which is precisely why they all happened.

And Liberalism can't say "No" because it has rejected the authority to even appeal to anything that might answer to Progressive demands in the negative. There is no God, no moral or natural law, no telos, no higher purpose larger than mankind's appetites.

And when someone's liberty runs into conflict with another person's "identity", the state has to step in to resolve the dispute, usually with a series of legal opinions and laws over the decades that eventually boil down to "if it's not affecting you personally, why do you care?"

Even worse, the state actually turns against social conservatives for upholding "arbitrary social constructs" that hold back people's ability to pursue happiness according to their own personal definition, in which case the social conservatives are themselves accused of being the tyrants that infringe on the rights of others.

This is how you get Progressives arguing that "gender is a social construct", or that no "human is illegal". Eventually, Liberalism creates a therapeutic state that compels people to respect the individual liberty of others to define their own pursuit of happiness in a way that might be morally repugnant to many Classical Liberals themselves.

But the Classical Liberals are constrained from pushing back against this insanity due to the fact that it was all done within the framework of their own ideology.

This brings me to my second point...

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Christian Heiens 🏛

@ChristianHeiens

Aug 2

You have no idea just how much the Democratic Party has to rely on non-citizens and illegal aliens to inflate their legislative districts.

Just look at this. Nearly 25% of this Blue district's population in the Virginia House of Delegates are "non-citizens".

These people get to be counted in the census and then end up being allocated in Congressional and State Legislative districts, which artificially expands the Left's electoral power.

Democrats don't even represent Americans. They represent foreigners. Literally.

If the allocation of Congressional and State Legislative maps were based only on US Citizens, Democrats would immediately lose 10-20% of all their seats in Congress and every State Legislature in the country.

Do you have any idea how many seats that would flip across the country?

This is just the Virginia House of Delegates, but look at how ridiculous this is.

The Democratic Party is astroturfed by foreigners.

🔵HD-2: 13% non-citizen
🔵HD-3: 11% non-citizen
🔵HD-5 9% non-citizen
🔵HD-6 8% non-citizen
🔵HD-7 8% non-citizen
🔵HD-8 20% non-citizen
🔵HD-9 13% non-citizen
🔵HD-10 8% non-citizen
🔵HD-11 12% non-citizen
🔵HD-12 15% non-citizen
🔵HD-13 15% non-citizen
🔵HD-14 16% non-citizen
🔵HD-16 12% non-citizen
🔵HD-17 8% non-citizen
🔵HD-18 10% non-citizen
🔵HD-19 14% non-citizen
🔵HD-20 20% non-citizen
🔵HD-21 13% non-citizen
🔵HD-23 10% non-citizen
🔵HD-24 10% non-citizen
🔵HD-25 9% non-citizen
🔵HD-26 12% non-citizen
🔵HD-27 15% non-citizen
🔵HD-28 9% non-citizen
🔵HD-58 9% non-citizen
🔵HD-76 8% non-citizen
🔵HD-77 12% non-citizen

Read 4 tweets

Christian Heiens 🏛

@ChristianHeiens

Mar 2

Every time the Right points out the "hypocrisy" of modern liberal regimes doing illiberal things like working to ban the AfD in Germany, arresting right-wing presidential candidates in Romania, shutting down the bank accounts of Canadian truckers, or trying to imprison Trump, liberals respond with the same unflinching argument: "Yes, we will suppress these people, because liberal democracy has the right to defend itself."

At least these people are honest about who they are and have stopped trying to hide behind the illusion of neutrality.

The old liberalism, the one that claimed to tolerate all perspectives and uphold the rule of law, is long since dead. Instead, we are left with a blunt assertion of power: "We will use force to protect our democracy because we believe it's the best order there is."

And in many ways, this is a very strong argument. Liberals can provide good evidence that their ideology has earned the right to be humanity's final ideological system.

They can point to the immense wealth, technological advancement, and social stability it has delivered for centuries. They can also claim it has stood the test of time, overthrowing monarchies, defeating fascism and communism, and crushing despots who brutalized and impoverished their peoples.

Why wouldn’t it have the right to defend itself?

But this argument comes at a price. By openly admitting that liberalism is not a neutral system but rather a hegemonic political order, its defenders have unwittingly shattered its moral authority.

Liberalism’s legitimacy was built on the claim that it was different from every other regime, that it ruled through principles rather than force and consensus rather than coercion.

The moment it justifies political repression as a necessary tool of self-preservation, it has abandoned that claim. If liberalism’s survival depends on identifying and crushing its enemies, then it is no different from any other regime that has wielded power throughout history.

This is patently obvious by now, which is why Right-wing populism has exploded over the last 15 years. The Right realizes it's being shafted by a system that no longer operates on rights and procedures. Instead, we're all increasingly subject to a system that operates on the old logic of sovereignty deciding who is included and who must be cast out.

The forces that drove cancel culture and gatekeeping in the 2010s are precisely the same forces that drive the annulment of elections and the silencing of political opposition today.

In short, liberalism has embraced Carl Schmitt’s core political truth: that all politics ultimately reduces to the friend-enemy distinction.

But what's the problem? Liberals certainly don't think there's any issue. They openly brag about it on this site all the time. Just look for any account with the usual flag or globe emojis and you'll see what I mean.

These people genuinely believe that liberalism has every right to use force to defend itself because with that force, it has ushered in a golden age for humanity.

Here's the problem.

If liberalism is no longer legitimized by universal principles but by outcomes (freedom, prosperity, technological progress, etc) then what happens when those outcomes begin to decline?

What happens when economic growth stagnates, when social trust erodes, when demographic collapse accelerates, or when institutions rot from within? If liberalism justifies itself by results alone, then its legitimacy is only as stable as its ability to deliver. And when it can no longer deliver, its justification for wielding power dissolves.

And this is exactly what's happening right now. People can instinctively feel that the game is rigged against them, and it's radicalizing them by the tens of millions.

They can't afford a house, inflation is chipping away at their standard of living, they live in increasingly low-trust societies with collapsing birth rates and replacement-level migration, they can't get married or have children, and they've seen one institution after another hijacked by overly zealous political ideologues who very explicitly wielded them in ways that shattered the public's trust.

And what happens to those who object to these things? They get crushed by the very system which claims the moral high ground for itself.

Liberalism increasingly seems less like the final form of human civilization and more like just another ruling order desperately clinging to power and frantically expanding its list of "existential threats" in an attempt to maintain control.

Read 5 tweets

Christian Heiens 🏛

@ChristianHeiens

Feb 18

Japan is Sleepwalking Into a Sovereign Debt Crisis

Japan’s economic predicament is the result of three decades of financial engineering designed to sustain a system that should have collapsed long ago.

This thread will explain what happened and why Japan's current path is unsustainable.

After the implosion of Japan’s massive asset bubble in the early 1990s, the country fell into a multi-decade-long period of stagnation, deflation, and weak GDP growth.

Between 1990 and 2009, the Nikkei 225 (Japan's most important stock market index) collapsed by more than 80%, one of the steepest and longest economic drawdowns in history. For context, the Dow Jones Industrial Index fell about 90% during the Great Depression but hit rock bottom just three years after the 1929 crash.

However, rather than allowing natural market forces to reset the economy after the 1980s bubble era, the Japanese government and the Bank of Japan embarked on an unprecedented experiment involving zero percent interest rates (and eventually negative interest rates), massive government spending, and debt monetization on a scale never attempted before.

Over time, this policy framework has led to a situation where Japan’s government debt has skyrocketed to over 260% of GDP, the highest of any developed nation in the world.

So how did the Japanese government manage to become so overleveraged?

By selling bonds to the central bank.

Read 10 tweets

Christian Heiens 🏛

@ChristianHeiens

Dec 23, 2024

This is going to be a long post, so let's begin by remembering the most important fact of them all:

The Left derives much of its power through its control of key institutions in society. As Republicans, we must prioritize recapturing or dismantling these ideological bastions.

Capturing castles is paramount. Everything else is secondary.

First, take back the institutions. The federal bureaucracy is a weapon against conservatives. Fire the activists, re-implement Schedule F, and redirect agencies to enforce existing laws against Leftist overreach, particularly in areas like education (CRT & DEI initiatives among others) and immigration.

The Left wins no matter what because they can always engage in bureaucratic sabotage even when they lose an election. No longer. The Federal bureaucracy must be shredded, and the remaining vestiges must be brought to heel and made to work for us and our values, not against us and for our enemies.

Second, take control of the courts. Fast-track originalist judges. Turn the judiciary into a firewall against Leftist overreach. And launch lawsuits—lots of them. Force the Left to defend their unconstitutional nonsense everywhere and all at once.

Third, defund the enemy. Halt all government grants and subsidies to universities and NGOs pushing Leftism. Immediately stop the flood of taxpayer-backed contracts to organizations advancing anti-conservative agendas (and there's a lot of them).

Launch antitrust investigations into Big Tech and other monopolistic entities that use their platforms to suppress conservative voices. Make it clear they will only be dropped when they stop punishing Conservative viewpoints and propping up Leftist ones. If they don't, break them up.

Read 6 tweets

Christian Heiens 🏛

@ChristianHeiens

Nov 8, 2024

You aren't prepared to see the swing map along the Rio Grande Valley.

Blexas is dead.

Trump erased 20 years worth of Democrat gains in one night.

El Paso County moved **20 points** to the Right.

Maverick County hadn't voted for a Republican since 1928. Trump barely won 20% of the vote here in 2016 and he carried it by a 19 point margin.

That's a 72.3-point shift to the Right in just two election cycles!!!

Look at these trends all along the Rio Grande Valley. Unbelievable.

Hidalgo and El Paso are major urban centers with nearly a million residents in each county.

Trump flipped one of them outright, and won the largest vote share in a generation in the other.

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