# Common misconceptions about liberalism **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 8, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905 "2026-09-08T21:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/1 "2026-09-08T21:01:06Z")
One commonly-touted example is that liberals are supposed to avoid being rich and that it’s hypocrisy to do so (for instance, people lambasting Obama for signing a $44 million book deal and having a huge Martha’s Vineyard property.) The more accurate liberalism is that you can be rich, but should pay more taxes than the rich currently pay, and that tax loopholes should be closed. Another common view of pro-lifers is that liberals somehow think abortion is good in its own right, like a desirable thing to have, like it’s somehow a win for liberals if America has 2 million abortions in one year rather than just 1 million. When it is more that liberals want abortions to be available but kept low due to widespread contraception (like Bill Clinton said, “Safe, legal, and rare.”) What are others? ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/2 "2026-09-08T21:05:04Z")
Liberals are bad with money. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/3 "2026-09-08T21:16:46Z")
- Liberals want open borders and unfettered immigration. - Liberals want to ban religion. - Liberals want to ban guns. The list could go on. The reality is that, yes, certainly, there are _some_ liberals (probably on the far left) who support the above, but they are not mainstream views among U.S. liberals. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/4 "2026-09-08T21:22:38Z")
Liberals want to ban cars. Liberals wanted the COVID lockdowns to go on forever. When liberals say they want “15-minute cities,” they’re envisioning a police state where no one is allowed to travel more than 15 minutes from their home. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/5 "2026-09-08T21:35:26Z")
Here’s another: “Liberals are unpatriotic.” Or “Liberals hate America.” I’m a liberal, or progressive if you like. I love my country. I don’t love what it has become and fear what it will become if we don’t fight for it. As for religion, if your religion brings you comfort, by all means practice it. Just don’t push it on everyone else or use it as an excuse for cruelty. As for abortion, I don’t like it, and think there should be a good reason for it, but I think it should be a personal choice between you and your conscience. I don’t support wide open borders. There need to be reasonable limits. We can’t support everyone. I am bad with money, however. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/6 "2026-09-08T23:34:04Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > certainly, there are _some_ liberals (probably on the far left) who support the above, Ban guns? Maybe, but even those who see this as an ideal understand the real world conditions that make it nearly impossible in this country. As for the first two, I would be interested to have you show us some self-identified liberals\* who hold those views. \*or people who could be realistically described as “liberal,” if you can get any agreement on what that word means. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/7 "2026-09-08T23:44:27Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > As for the first two, I would be interested to have you show us some self-identified liberals\* who hold those views. Just because I was curious (and admittedly, it’s hard to find _politicians_ who hold these views): John Washington is a freelance journalist and author, who’s written for _The Atlantic_. His focus areas for his work (immigration and climate change) indicate to me that he’s likely a liberal; one of his books is _[The Case for Open Borders](https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2199-the-case-for-open-borders)_. Here’s a link to [a transcript of a podcast interview](https://www.nyclu.org/podcast/the-case-for-open-borders) he did with the NYLCU on the topic. As for “banning religion”: all you need to do is read this board. There are plenty of Dopers – most of whom, again, I would suspect are some flavor of liberal – who are vehemently anti-religion, and weigh in on the topic in numerous threads. They’re usually atheists, feel that religion is the cause of evil in the world, and that the world would be a better place without it. I’m not going to go hunting for quotes, but I would not be at all surprised if there are liberal atheist Dopers who would support a literal ban on religion. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/8 "2026-09-08T23:47:52Z")
I don’t like religion but we couldn’t even ban alcohol, banning religion is simply unworkable and I think anyone with a high school diploma knows that, regardless of political views. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/9 "2026-09-08T23:49:04Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > banning religion is simply unworkable and I think anyone with a high school diploma knows that, regardless of political views. I don’t disagree. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who would like it to happen. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/10 "2026-09-09T00:01:37Z")
I don’t understand, like these people would want religion gone if a fairy godmother could do it, but they don’t want religion gone here in the real world? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/11 "2026-09-09T00:03:07Z")
I think the biggest misconception is that the activist fringe is part of, or representative of, liberalism. Liberals believe in making sure that everyone has civil liberties, and is also well protected from other people’s exercise of civil liberties. This is also an internationalist perspective. Supporting environmentalism because of how it impacts other people’s rights and interests, that’s liberalism. Doing it because you love mother nature and hate corporations, that’s a different ideology that aligns with liberalism on this topic. Liberalism will support a just war that opposes a threat to people’s legitimate rights. Those who will watch others thrown under the boot of fascism because they oppose all war, those aren’t liberals, that’s something else. Basically, the group that was once known as “bleeding-heart liberals” are for the most part not liberal because they’re often very willing to infringe civil liberties (property, speech, guns) to prioritize human rights. Or because they actually subscribe to some other ideology that’s hostile to liberalism (i.e. communism), but they get lumped in with liberalism because we’ve accepted the right-wing framing that makes liberalism the miscellaneous bin for every non-right-wing ideology ranging from Bill Clinton to the DSA. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/12 "2026-09-09T00:09:50Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I don’t understand, like these people would want religion gone if a fairy godmother could do it, but they don’t want religion gone here in the real world? What don’t you understand? It’s not unlike opposition to guns: there are people may desire for there to be no guns (or religion), but most understand, that _realistically_, it’s not going to happen in the U.S. in the foreseeable future. It’s not that they “don’t want religion gone here in the real world,” it’s that they realize that it’s not feasible. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/13 "2026-09-09T00:15:15Z")
Right, which means they don’t want to ban religion. I guess I’m confused about why this is a problem. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/14 "2026-09-09T00:17:27Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > John Washington is a freelance journalist and author, who’s written for _The Atlantic_. His focus areas for his work (immigration and climate change) indicate to me that he’s likely a liberal; one of his books is _[The Case for Open Borders](https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2199-the-case-for-open-borders)_. Here’s a link to [a transcript of a podcast interview](https://www.nyclu.org/podcast/the-case-for-open-borders) he did with the NYLCU on the topic. Liberals definitely want more openness in borders, but not the unaccounted free-for-all that immigration hawks want to call “open borders”. This is one place where the liberals are at stark odds with most everyone else, whether it’s right-wingers who want closed borders because they hate immigrants, or the left fringe that opposes foreign labor competing with domestic workers. While the exact definition of “open borders” matters a lot here, generally liberalism is not compatible with a desire to deny immigration to anybody but the worst criminals. Likewise with international trade, liberals are fans of it, while conservatives and the left fringe are hostile to it. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/15 "2026-09-09T00:17:54Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I guess I’m confused about why this is a problem. The topic of the thread is “misperceptions about liberalism.” And one of those, very commonly held by conservative Christians, is that the “godless liberals” want to literally ban religion. The point is that, sure, it’s possible that “I do literally want to ban all religion” is a very niche view held by a small number of self-identified “liberals.” Which does not make it part of general liberal orthodoxy. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/16 "2026-09-09T00:19:49Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Liberals definitely want more openness in borders, but not the unaccounted free-for-all that immigration hawks want to call “open borders”. Once again: I do not disagree. I stated that there are _some_ (probably a small number) of liberals who have extreme views like “open borders.” I am, really and truly, not stating that it’s a commonly-held view. @Roderick_Femm asked me to find an example of a liberal who held the “open borders” view. I found one. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/17 "2026-09-09T00:20:15Z")
It seemed like you were saying it wasn’t a misperception because people actually wanted to do it. It _is_ a misperception, to be clear. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/18 "2026-09-09T00:21:43Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > It seemed like you were saying it wasn’t a misperception because people actually wanted to do it. _sigh_ I said that there may be _ **some** _ liberals (probably a small number, and maybe I should have been a lot clearer on that) who _ **do** _ have an extreme view on these issues. The misperception is that the extreme view is what _all_ (or even most) liberals share. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/19 "2026-09-09T00:24:15Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905/20 "2026-09-09T00:27:45Z")
I don’t know if it’s super common, but common enough to piss me off: Liberals support the right to marry your dog. Or cat. Or 11-year old cousin. And speaking of pissing, liberals support the right for our kids to pee in a litter box at school. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-liberalism/1032905.md?page=2)