From what I hear, it is hard to be a political conservative on this and several other college campuses. Sounds plausible. It is a common practice for people to treat differing beliefs with hostility, so why wouldn’t it be the case for the political conservative to feel as her beliefs were constantly under attack? I can’t think of a reason. My inclination suggests, therefore, that the claim that it is hard to be a political conservative on this and several other college campuses is correct.

On the other hand, inclination schminclination. As a scientist and a skeptic, I’m not going to believe something just because it might very well be the case. I need some evidence. To ease my doubts, I decided to subject the claim to the rigors of the scientific method. This is because I am a scientist. As a skeptic, I could have also used the skeptical method¹, but I decided that the scientific method would be more useful towards my purpose. Anyway, my hypothesis to explain the observation “Political conservatives allege that life is hard on college campuses” is something like “People will treat people with differing viewpoints harshly.” Now to run the most sexy part of the scientific method, making and testing predictions!

To measure being treated harshly, which is rather subjective, I’ll have to make myself the research subject. This poses a problem because I don’t have any differing viewpoints. Usually, when get a viewpoint, my endorsement makes it so popular that it is the dominant worldview almost instantly. For the longest time, because of this problem, my research could not go further. Then, something miraculous happened. Popular opinion became things like “Chuck Norris is cool,” and “The French are lame,” and “Chuck Norris could easily defeat a Frenchman.” Needless to say, I don’t hold these beliefs. Chuck Norris is not cool. The French are not lame. Chuck Norris would find the prospect of defeating a Frenchman difficult if not impossible. Now that I have a differing viewpoint from my peers², I can see if my treatment is different.

Day 1: I started the day by hanging out with all of my friends. We were partying in Germany and some of my friends got the idea that to really appreciate German culture we would have to invade France. The rest of my friends thought that this would be an excellent idea, and since I am a sucker for peer pressure, I figured I’d help with the invasion. I thought that everyone would be able to look past my personal beliefs so we could plan a successful invasion together, but I was sadly mistaken. The proposed plan was to simply march into Paris and announce our intention to take over the country. The thinking was that the French would instantly surrender. In my opinion, this was a horrible plan for several reasons: 1) Though the French, like any other country that constantly gets attacked by crazies, have experience with surrendering, they have even more experience with revolting. My concern was that the French people would friggin’ revolt our team. 2) Paris can instantly transform into a battle station through the proper use of barricades³. I saw Transformers: the Movie and I am well aware of the difficulties of attacking something with both a city mode and a battle station mode. No, thank you. 3) Grand cannons⁴. I told my friends that we would need a much better plan if we hoped to take Paris. They told me that I was being foolish and that if I didn’t want to play by their rules that I couldn’t party with them. Harsh!

Day 2: I was worried about my friends’ safety so I decided that the only way to help them was to find Lance Armstrong. I’m no Lance Armstrong fan, but I knew that if anyone could neutralize the French threat to my friends, it would be him. I headed over to Texas and asked for Lance Armstrong. “Wouldn’t you rather have Chuck Norris?” asked some Texan. “Of course not,” I answered. “Why would I want some beardy old guy when I could have a person specifically designed and built to combat the French?” The Texan refused to tell me where Lance Armstrong was, however, insisting that getting Chuck Norris was the correct decision. Eventually, I gave up and just got Ivan Basso, and, for good measure, Michael Rasmussen.⁵

Day 3: I knew that the invasion was scheduled for five o’clock that evening and if there was any chance to save my friends we would have to stop them before the invasion happened. We were thousands of kilometers away from Paris, but I happened to be traveling with two of the greatest people in the world at getting to Paris at an amazing speed. The journey was no doubt abound with challenges, but there was no mountain, real or figurative, that Michael Rasmussen could not climb and no stage of the Tour de France, real or figurative, that Ivan Basso could not win, and we successfully reached Paris with plenty of time to stop my friends from making a horrible mistake. They were upset at me for doubting their plan would succeed, but they realized that sometimes respecting the opinions of others means that you can’t always do exactly what you want. The Parisians were touched by the heartwarming realization, and invited us all to party in Paris. We did, and it was quite enjoyable.

Day 4: The partying taught my friends that the French are actually very cool, and they suggested to me that perhaps just as they did not give the French a fair shot, I wasn’t giving Chuck Norris a fair shot. I could see the strength of their inductive argument, so I went back to Texas to give the ranger a second chance at my good graces. We hung out on his ranch and talked for a while. It was too much of a while for me. After we discussed what he thought of the Walker, Texas Ranger lever on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, it was pretty much awkward small-talk. Still, he seemed like an okay guy. Also, he must have really liked me, because when I left, he cried.⁶

I guess my experiment produced some pretty strong evidence for my hypothesis “The French are a very cool people and have a transformable city just like Autobots and also Chuck Norris probably cries all the time.” Feel free to repeat the experiment, because that is the core of science. Also, feel free to give me some grants, because that is the other core of science.

I'll roundhouse kick you back to the essence.

Footnotes

1. The skeptical method is just like the scientific method but instead of making a hypothesis and some predictions you just say “What if we were in the Matrix?” until your opponent concedes the point that you very well might be in the Matrix.

2. “Peers” is and has always been a term I have used quite loosely and with little respect for its actual meaning. As it happens, I am constitutionally barred from ever appearing before a jury.

3. My favorite part of Les Misérables is when the ABCs journey to Cybertron to get Paris sentience and a personality. This was sadly cut out of the musical and the movie, which is why you don't know about it.

4. I was pretty proud of myself for making a real-time strategy game reference. I must admit that my knowledge of the genre is pretty limited.

5. I really like Michael Rasmussen on account of when he wore the polka dot jersey in the Tour de France he got himself polka dot pants and a polka dot helmet to go along with it. Ask me about him sometime and I'll be happy to talk about him!

6. There was this one video I saw of Chuck Norris crying, which is something he is alleged never to do. Seeing this video was the moment of my disillusionment, and it was the time that I realized that, probably, Chuck Norris cries all the time.