Latest news with #MicahBeckwith
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Beckwith debates Hoosiers in chippy town hall
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith answers questions during his May 27, 2025, town hall in Zionsville. (Niki Kelly/Indiana Capital Chronicle) Republican Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith went toe-to-toe with constituents at a Zionsville town hall Tuesday night — defending his stance on bringing religion into his public post and concerns about 'chemtrails.' About 100 Hoosiers attended the event, though some left as the event stretched to two hours. The night featured numerous interruptions from both Beckwith and those in the audience. Loud boos and noes were repeatedly lobbed. 'If you shoot little snide remarks at me, I might just shoot them right back,' Beckwith said during one exchange. After the event, Beckwith said he considered it a success. 'I'm not trying to win somebody over to my side of the argument. I'm just trying to say, hey, let's dialogue. And I'm going to tell you what I believe, why I believe it,' he told reporters. 'And, you know, I believe people are adults. They can make up their own minds after they hear what I say, and then you can let other people, you know, let their voices be heard as well.' One attendee, Scott Johnson, read several laws and constitutional provisions about religion in government, noting that the U.S. Constitution contains no references to the Bible or Christianity. 'I don't understand how you can swear an oath to the Constitution and then violate it,' he said. 'Your word should mean something, sir.' Another woman told Beckwith, who is a pastor, that Hoosiers are his constituents and not his congregants. His response was to point out God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence four times. The crowd audibly groaned when Beckwith said the separation of church and state is a myth and that 'we are a Judeo-Christian nation.' One woman, who declined to provide her name, was concerned about the preservation of farmland in Boone County and other areas. 'I too believe in free enterprise, in the capital market, but I also believe that we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our land,' she said, specifically mentioning the Indiana Economic Development Corporation buying up land for the contentious LEAP district. Beckwith said he wants Gov. Mike Braun to clean house at the IEDC. 'I don't know if you can save the IEDC at this point because people don't trust it. People have seen the abuse that has gone on,' he said, adding that the LEAP project was 'slammed down the throats of the people of Boone County.' Another speaker pointed to Beckwith's recent peddling of a conspiracy theory that aircraft are nefariously spreading dangerous substances in the condensation trails — so-called 'chemtrails' — they leave in the sky. A second man said this is an issue that concerns him. 'You mentioned chemtrails and that's got my attention,' Alex Sutherland said. 'You look up at the sky today, it doesn't feel like May. It didn't at the Indy 500. I know they are spraying stuff out of those high-altitude jet planes.' Beckwith praised Florida and Tennessee for passing legislation targeting weather modification. And he noted a bill filed in Indiana to levy huge fines on anyone putting chemicals in the air to impact weather. 'I think it's worth looking into,' he said, adding, 'If we find out it's laughable then great.' During the exchange, Beckwith called the crowd 'leftist socialists.' One woman yelled back, 'We're Americans, not socialists.' Property taxes also earned discussion after a man gave examples of inconsistent assessed values in communities. 'We dropped the ball on this,' Beckwith said about the recently passed property tax reform package. He supports limiting property tax payments based on the purchase price of a home but acknowledged the problems can't be fixed overnight. 'It's going to take us longer than just a few months to untangle this mess,' Beckwith said. About 30 protesters gathered outside before the town hall began. Many were carrying signs. One said 'Lt. Gov. Beckwith. This is our state, not your church.' Another said he was '0/5 of a person' — referencing comments he made on the Three-Fifths Compromise. 'Micah Beckwith is harmful to children,' Amy Garman, of Indivisible Central Indiana, told the crowd. She said Republicans have banned books and outed transgender kids 'under the guise of parental rights.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Indianapolis Star
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
In defense of Micah Beckwith's Three-Fifths Compromise remarks
I am responding to the letter published May 11 in IndyStar maintaining Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith is lying about the Three-Fifths Compromise. The reason it's called a compromise is the northern anti-slave states wanted no slave counted for representation, while the southern states wanted slaves to count fully, even though they'd have no right to vote. Opinion: Micah Beckwith's 'history of what actually happened' is completely wrong Without a compromise, there may not have been a United States, and slavery would still be around in the South today. Because of the compromise, the anti-slave states eventually outnumbered the slave states and politically gained the upper hand. Of course, the nation still had to fight a bloody Civil War to end slavery completely. It's nonsense to claim the compromise was about protecting slavery.
Indianapolis Star
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
Micah Beckwith's record is all about distortion, censorship
Show Caption I've lived in Indiana for 37 years. Like many Hoosiers, I value faith, truth and leadership rooted in integrity. That's why I'm deeply concerned about Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith's recent comments defending the Three-Fifths Compromise as 'a great move toward ending slavery.' The truth is, this compromise increased the power of slaveholding states by counting enslaved people for representation while denying them rights. It prolonged slavery. Historians overwhelmingly agree it preserved injustice — not ended it. Meanwhile, Beckwith supported policies on the Hamilton East Public Library Board that removed over 2,000 books from the teen section, including critically acclaimed, award-winning works about race, identity and history. That's not about protecting children — it's about restricting truth. You cannot accuse others of 'miseducation' while erasing the very materials that help students understand their world. Leadership demands truth. Beckwith's pattern of historical distortion and censorship shows a disregard for the very values he claims to uphold. I respectfully call for his resignation. And I urge fellow Hoosiers to speak out. Censorship and hypocrisy have no place in Indiana leadership.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Indiana's MAGA Lt. Governor Dragged for Defending Slavery Legislation. Here's Why He's Got it All The Way Wrong
Leave it to a white Republican to defend an old slavery legislation. Ind. Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith is catching heat after he took to social media in an attempted 'gotcha' moment. Instead, things backfired on him when he chose to defend one pro-slavery law that still haunts the Black community to this day. So, what did Beckwith say and why was he wrong as can possibly be? Let's break it down. On Thursday (April 24), Democrats in the Indiana Senate compared a bill to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in higher education to the Three-Fifths Compromise. Although the GOP led legislation was ultimately passed in both the Senate and House, according to Fox News, the debate prompted Beckwith to run to social media, calling the Three-Fifths Compromise 'a great move.' He said on X, 'I would like to share with you the Three-Fifths Compromise is not a pro-discrimination compromise.' Beckwith went on to defend the agreement saying, 'Know your history. Go back and study the documents. Read them for yourself like I have.' He continued, 'You will find that the Three-Fifths Compromise and many other things like that were designed to make sure that justice was equal for all people and equality really meant equality for all.' The almost four-minute rant continued, 'This was a great move by the North to make sure that slavery would be eradicated in our nation.' Beckwith added, 'They knew what they were doing. But now here you have Senate Democrats in today's American Republic who do not understand that.' We all learned about the Three-Fifths Compromise in school, but clearly some of us were paying more attention than others. The agreement came about during the 1781 Constitutional Convention and determined how enslaved people would be represented in Congress. Because chattel slavery was so prominent in the south, many southern states wanted their slaves to count towards the census data. Higher numbers in the census meant southern states could hold more seats in Congress, compared to the densely populated North. Eventually, the North and South agreed slaves, who were viewed as property at the time, would be counted as three-fifths of a human being, according to Harvard University, hence the Three-Fifths Compromise. It wasn't until the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the creation of the Reconstruction Amendments that the Three-Fifths Compromise was abolished, alongside slavery. But centuries later, the deal is still a reminder of the horrific impact of slavery's past. No matter how you slice it, the Three-Fifths Compromise was about slavery. But more than just that, it reenforced the dehumanization of Black bodies and codified slavery for almost the next full century. Even experts like Alex Lichtenstein, a history professor at Indiana University, described Beckwith's video as 'a confusion between intention and long-term consequences.' He told the Indiana Capital Chronicle, 'The intention of the compromise was, quite frankly, to sell out Black people. That is to lock them into slavery for longer term in the interest of creating the union.' Lichtenstein continued adding, 'The argument that the Three-Fifths Compromise was actually passed with the intention of destroying or undermining slavery is just, frankly, laughable.' Local religious groups and politicians also called Beckwith out for romanticizing slavery's dark past, according to Fox 59 News. At a time when the removal of important Black figures, like Jackie Robinson and the Tuskegee Airmen, is being facilitated by the U.S. government, Beckwith's words are more than just historically dangerous. Many view his video as an attempt to 'rewrite' American history, and the potential consequences should have all Americans, especially Black folks, worried. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Indianapolis Star
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
Micah Beckwith's 'history of what actually happened' is completely wrong
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith recently posted a short video denouncing the 'DEI radical revisionist history' taught by 'professors at woke schools.' His target: the idea that the Three-Fifths Compromise 'was some terrible thing in our past.' This compromise — one through which the U.S. Constitution was established in 1787 — incorporated this language into Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution: 'Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.' Beckwith insists that this compromise was 'a great move by the North to make sure that slavery would be eradicated in our nation'; that its instigators 'were fighting for equality for all'; and that they 'helped to root out slavery and lead us into a more perfect union.' He claims to be defending the teaching of 'the history of what actually happened.' But it is obvious that he seeks to whitewash what actually happened in the name of an anti-intellectual celebration of American greatness. The very language of the compromise explicitly incorporated four distinct classes of people who most definitely were not equal: 'free persons,' 'those bound to Service for a Term of Years (i.e., indentured servants)," 'Indians not taxed' and 'three fifths of all other Persons.' Who were these 'all other persons?' They were the roughly 450,000 human beings enslaved throughout America, mainly but not exclusively in the South. The compromise allowed for three-fifths of the total population of these enslaved persons in each state to count for the sake of representation in the House of Representatives, while also allowing that these persons — the property of the 'free persons' who legally owned them — were without any of the rights mentioned in the Constitution. It is true that some drafters of the Constitution from Northern states thought slavery immoral, and some others hoped that in time it would fade from the scene (Thomas Jefferson also hoped this). But not a single one of them opposed slavery as a matter of principle, and every single one embraced the provision that incorporated a group of 'other persons' who were not really legal persons at all. It was not northerners who crafted the Three-Fifths Compromise. It was James Madison, a Virginia plantation owner who held title to over 100 enslaved persons and chose not to free a single one in his last will and testament. Madison was a brilliant thinker and a creative statesman, and he was not an evil man. Like many of his colleagues, he was somewhat tormented by the obvious contradiction between the Declaration of Independence's 'all men are created equal' principle and the institution of slavery itself. In Federalist No. 54, Madison offered a tortured defense of the Three-Fifths Compromise, insisting that enslaved persons were persons whose lives and bodies ought somehow to be respected — and who should count somehow — but were also a lesser status of persons, and so should count three-fifths for the sake of representation, but not at all when it came to selecting representatives. Beckwith insists that this Compromise 'helped to root out slavery and lead us into a more perfect union.' I am not sure what he means by helped. The compromise helped to build support for the Constitution and its rhetoric of 'a more perfect union' — by codifying slavery, even without naming it, and not by rooting it out. The work of rooting it out required generations of abolitionists and human rights activists, who were routinely attacked for opposing slavery. Many of these activists were African-Americans, like Frederick Douglass, who were able to oppose slavery only after escaping from it. As Douglass brilliantly stated in his famous 1852 speech, 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,' he was by law a thief, for by escaping enslavement he had absconded with himself, the 'rightful' property of another. If Beckwith wishes to understand this better, he should reread the 1857 Dred Scott decision authored by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, which declared that 'Negroes' were not full citizens and that a slave once was a slave everywhere and forever. The Three-Fifths Compromise remained the law of the land until a violent Civil War was fought and won by the Union, the secessionist Confederate States of America was defeated and the 13th Amendment abolished slavery. This happened in 1865, 78 years after the Constitution was drafted. I have been teaching about all of this at Indiana University for almost 40 years. What Beckwith says about 'woke professors' and 'DEI history' is a slanderous travesty of the actual historical education offered to young American students by my colleagues and me. U.S. citizens ought to feel proud to know that, over its long history, generations of activists have been inspired by the Declaration of Independence to fight for the expansion of rights and for the democratization of the Constitution. But it is those who struggled to make the U.S. 'a more perfect union' who ought to be recognized, and not those who stood in their way. This does not require demonizing the framers or the compromises they made. But it does require honesty about who actually did what, and to whom, and how it is that we now possess the freedoms we cherish. To deny the history of the struggle for freedom is to diminish both the history and the freedom. Why would Beckwith, or anyone else, want to do this? Jeffrey C. Isaac is a James H. Rudy Professor of political science and adjunct professor of Jewish studies and international studies at Indiana University, where he has taught for 39 years.
