On Dec. 4, the Brandeis Libertarian Conservative Union held an event in the Shiffman Humanities Center featuring notable conservative author and speaker David Horowitz discussing conservative values and beliefs.

This was Horowitz's third time speaking at the University, and the event was organized through Young America's Foundation. "We worked with Young America's Foundation, which tries to promote conservative values on college campuses and encourages conservative students not to be embarrassed about themselves and to be proud of what you believe in," said BCLU president Morris Didia '14 in an interview with the Justice.

Horowitz primarily focused on education and the situation in the Middle East. Horowitz critiqued the current education system in terms of both primary and university education, sharing his insights on the bias of certain universities, including Brandeis.

"Brandeis ... pretends to be inclusive and pretends to be examining and conducting an inquiry in the interest of knowledge," said Horowitz during the event. "You have almost no conservatives on your faculty ... It's a deliberate exclusion of conservatives from faculties, or no interest whatsoever in providing students with diverse points of view."

Horowitz proceeded to explain that such deliberate exclusion is not conducive to open discussion on a college campus, where such discussion should be not only existent, but encouraged, by professors. "If you don't have two sides to a debate, you can't actually pursue the truth. What you're doing is you're persuading people to your side ... Even if you don't realize it, because you're students and don't have the knowledge, you're being indoctrinated," said Horowitz.

In addition to university education, Horowitz assessed K-12 education and its flaws, primarily caused by the lack of competition and rewards based upon merit for public school teachers. Following this statement, he made the distinction between conservatism and progressivism.

"The one basic difference between left and right is that progressives' judgments are based on something that is imaginary; it never existed ... The left is a delusional progressivism," said Horowitz.

Horowitz suggested that this idea behind progressivism has led to false perceptions of events in the Middle East, and unwarranted support of peoples that are led by openly anti-Semitic organizations.

However, Horowitz himself could not coin a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. "Conservatives don't have solutions. Conservatives have a realistic view," said Horowitz.

Despite his lack of a solution, Horowitz still believes that America should be involved in support of Israel. "The world is one unit ... America can't detach itself. I'm not for isolationism; I'm for realism," said Horowitz.

The event was open to those who supported and disagreed with Horowitz's views; those who opposed or needed clarification on his opinions were encouraged to challenge him in a question and answer session.

"Even though we lost the election, we wanted to show heavy liberal arenas like colleges campuses that the conservative message is still alive," said Didia. "It's just a way to give college students another point of view and to show that we're still alive and we're still out there."