Drinking Liberally, again

**UPDATE**

Kudos to YoungDem, the wonderful, charming, and take-charge sort of person who has taken it upon themselves to apply for a chapter of Drinking Liberally here in the Illinois Quads.

He asks that anyone with any questions or comments contact him at QCIL.DrinkingLiberally@yahoo.com

Way to go YoungDem. Let's all get behind this and show some support at least to get it off the ground.


Last year, I wrote the following post. A loyal reader has again expressed interest in the idea, and perhaps someone would be willing to step forward and assume the very modest responsibilities in starting a local chapter.

I would like to attend, but for obvious reason's I can't start the chapter myself.

The following first appeared on November 29th, 2005.

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Drinking Liberally is an organization which describes itself thusly:

An informal, inclusive Democratic drinking club. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics.

Bars are democratic spaces - you talk to strangers, you share booths, you feel the bond of common ground. Bring democratic discourse to your local democratic space - build Democracy one drink at a time.

I'd drink to that. How about you?

Amazingly, there's no local chapter established as yet. If anyone is interested in starting one, the how-to is found here.

Let's discuss it here and get this ball rolling. I think it would be a fun time, and I'm optimistic we can avoid throwing chairs, pulling hair, or decking each other.

I think it would foster a little more brother and sisterhood amongst local Dems, progressives, or others to the left side of the political spectrum. It's hard to really loath someone who buys you a drink, at least for a few hours.

And if someone just bores the life out of you or annoys you to the point where you want to scratch your own eyes out, you could always migrate to another part of the room or cloister yourself in a booth where they can't get to you.

I bet with a little social lubrication, things would go well. A plus would be that it wouldn't be an organized party event, thus it wouldn't be in a florescent lit room with folding chairs, stale carrot and celery trays or donuts and day old coffee from styrofoam cups, which oddly, since this seems to be the preferred forum for Dem meetings, isn't very condusive to discussion or camaraderie.

Any ideas for a good meeting spot? Preferably someplace affordable and comfortable.

Ideas? Volunteers? Let's see if we can get this going.