It’s funny what things seem to tick off liberals — Donald Rumsfeld not personally signing letters, John Ashcroft reading library records, President Bush saying “nuke-u-ler,” Newt Gingrich existing, the United States actually enforcing UN resolutions and Christmas.

It’s also strange what seems to not upset them. Let me explain.

Whenever I complain about how my professors are liberals, someone always says to me, “Isn’t college all about having your opinions challenged?” or “The purpose of a college education is to be exposed to a diversity of viewpoints.”

Invariably, this person is also a liberal, yet I have never once heard a liberal lament about having his or her own opinions merely validated and not challenged. Nor have I ever seen a liberal organize a protest, wave a hand-made sign, or burn a class schedule while demanding greater diversity of viewpoints in the classroom.

And this is certainly not because of the abundance of conservative professors at Iowa State. It is well known that academics in general tend to lean left. But consider these numbers: Of the 27 ISU political science professors listed on the department’s Web page, one is a registered Republican. One. (Let it also be noted that this particular individual is actually a professor in a different department, but he teaches a course that is cross-listed as a political science course.) True, it is only one department, but it is arguably the department most in need of political diversity and balance.

Some may also argue that not everyone takes a political science course. Every student does take a U.S. diversity course, though. Of the 89 professors listed on the schedule of classes as teaching a U.S. diversity course in fall 2004 or spring 2005, only two are registered Republicans.

The whole point of the U.S. diversity requirement is to make sure that students cannot graduate from Iowa State without having been exposed to diversity. I’m not sure if a liberal student could be exposed to diversity even if he of she tried!

I suppose that my liberal peers could have claimed ignorance up to this point. But now that they know the magnitude of the imbalance, what will they do? Will they organize a conservative coming out day to promote tolerance? Will they print T-shirts depicting a red, white and blue elephant above the words “It’s OK with me?” What will they demand of the administration? Affirmative action for Republican faculty? Conservative sensitivity training?

My guess is that they will do nothing. Not because they do not care about diversity. They most certainly do, but only diversity of the most superficial kind, dealing with gender and race, not genuinely distinct views of human nature, the role of government and the ends of man.

As for having one’s opinions challenged, liberals think that only certain opinions ought to be rebuked. In their minds, the college experience is intended to turn country bumpkins into cosmopolitan sophisticates; born-again creationist fanatics into skeptical Darwinist agnostics; warmongering resource-gobbling capitalists into peace-loving tree-hugging activists; and racist sexist, homophobes into tolerant accepting progressives.

If my liberal peers are content with such a farcical understanding of conservatives, I say fine. Leave them be.

After all, it’s not I who is still utterly confused as to how President Bush won re-election. I don’t make ridiculously absurd statements like “Republicans want women pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen,” and “They’re more afraid of seeing two men kissing than (insert your favorite Bush-induced calamity here).” I’m perfectly content with my political opposition being ignorant of conservative philosophy and ill-equipped to refute it. The fact that their own ignorance is by and large self-inflicted makes their befuddlement all the more amusing.

And to think it does not upset them in the least.