Ha ha! I just thought about the fact that I sometimes feel this way where I work -- that it's OK to just assume people are more or less 'progressive', and that I can air my political views fairly freely. Of course, it took a while before I started being so presumptuous (I had to be convinced over time that the majority of my peers were kinda with me), but still. It's there, that desire to have a safe place to be a librul.