Dateline: Twitmo, 06/25/23] Tues, 06/19, Hamilton Co, IN, preacher Micah Beckwith, running in 2024 for IN Lt Gov from the GOP, was a guest on “Mouthwash,” John Schmitz’s FB podcast. (Beckwith doesn’t have to worry about swaying primary voters. GOP State Convention 1/8

delegates pick the Lt Gov.) Beckwith says he’s completed course work w/Hillsdale College & is a “constitutionalist.” Hillsdale’s downloads are free. Its SEO ppl are good because the only items that appear on the 1st search screens R raves. The course consists of 12 lectures that each 2/8

run 23-40 minutes w/lecture 12 under 8 minutes. [WARNING: after sign up I was hit w/1-3 pop-ups for courses the titles of which sound informative about U.S. history & The Constitution.] There are significant failures in the lectures. Premises: Hillsdale president Larry Arnn gives 3/8

the 1st & last lectures. He uses photos of The White House, The Capitol and the Supreme Court to illustrate 3 branches of gov’t created by The Constitution. Those buildings did not exist & what now is D.C. was a swamp in 1787. The lectures imply Europeans landed on a 4/8

continent w/o people. In 1491, pp. 35-36, Charles C. Mann says Wampanoag confederation viewed Europeans who’d been “visiting New England for at least a century” as “often unbearably dirty” & prone to fits of chicanery.” The lecturers advance a view that our gov’t is morally 5/8

superior than any that have gone before. Wait: good aspects & bad are our history. A premise that is flawed is in religion. Mr Arnn says “god” appears 4 times in The Declaration. (Lec 1, 19:00.) That’s a stretch. Jefferson, among others of that generation, was a Deist. He respected 6/8

“moral teachings of Jesus without believing in his divine status.” Holmes, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, 2006, p. 42. So “Nature’s God” is not biblical. Mr Arnn’s claims that “Supreme Judge,” “Divine Providence” and “Creator” fall still further from a deity 7/8

of either testament. I cannot recommend the Hillsdale course. Beckwith is as much of a scholar on The Constitution, after going through these lectures, as I am about time travel after reading Calvin & Hobbes. 8/8