Author of Be Ready for Anything and Build a Better Pantry on a Budget online course
In a world where idiotic Tweets are de rigueur, one this week has stood out as the most ignorant and hateful of them all.
Jackson Kernion, a graduate student and philosophy instructor decided to enlighten the rest of us by sharing his lofty view of the citizens of rural America in a Tweet (that has since been removed.)
Here’s what Kernion had to say about rural America.
He doesn’t just dislike living in the country personally. Kernion thinks that anyone who lives in the country is a “bad person” who should be punished.
Campus Reform reports:
Kernion began the thread by advocating against affordable healthcare solutions in rural America, saying that “Rural Healthcare Should be expensive! And that expense should be borne by those who choose rural America!”
He argued that promoting a need for “affordable rural healthcare” is equivalent to arguing for rural Americans “to be subsidized by those who choose a more efficient way of life.”
“Same goes for rural broadband. And gas taxes,” Kernion added.
“It should be uncomfortable to live in rural America. It should be uncomfortable to not move,” he wrote…
…“I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans. They, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions. Some, I assume are good people. But this nostalgia for some imagined pastoral way of life is stupid and we should shame people who aren’t pro-city,” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet. (source)
He later sort-of-but-not-really apologized in another Tweet.
Clearly, Kernion doesn’t understand where food originates.
Some folks who look down at the folks outside of the big cities (basically anyone who doesn’t live in NYC, LA, or San Francisco) don’t really seem to understand that food – that vital necessity for life whether you’re a city dweller or not, generally originates not at Trader Joes or Whole Foods, but…you guessed it, the country.
This reminds me of the guy from Forbes a few years back who bafflingly stated that self-reliant homesteaders were…wait for it…”mooching off civil society.” Generally, folks in the city don’t actually want farms in the city. Livestock has a tendency to poop and publicly fornicate, two things that are generally frowned upon in public. (Certain cities that will remain unnamed aside.)
Derek Smiley, a friend of mine back in California posted about the friendly reminder he sent to Kernion. Smiley wrote:
Some folks just don’t like rural Americans. Over the years, we’ve had politicians, (with their noses held high in superiority) dismiss “flyover country.” Maybe it’s because we “cling to our guns or religion” as a former president quipped.
Recently, Jackson Kernion, a grad student from UC Berkeley who teaches philosophy there, tweeted “I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans.” He went on to say “They, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions.” To dig himself a bit deeper he continued “some, I assume, are good people. But this nostalgia for some imagined pastoral way of life is stupid and we should shame people who aren’t pro-city.”
Bravo Mr. Kernion, bravo! You have exercised your first amendment right and I fully support free speech! You are entitled to your opinions, even if they are misguided.
I was motivated to exercise my first amendment right so I emailed Mr. Kernion. By now, I suspect most of you know I enjoy writing. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this email and you may enjoy reading it. I do hope he responds, but I suspect he has been flooded with emails from around the country.
If you’d like to email Jackson, you can do so at [email protected]
u Enjoy your day my fellow rural Americans! (source)
He attached the message you can see below.
Just a quick reminder
Rural America is home to 50.2 million acres of wheat – which is super important for those who eat avocado toast. 90% of the avocados grown in America are in – you guessed it – rural California. Rural America provides nearly 167K acres for lettuce if you happen to enjoy salad.
All in all, rural American provides 400 million acres of land for the growth of food, or food for our food (livestock feed).
And this doesn’t include the manufacturing jobs in America which are nearly always rural or semi-rural. There are nearly 300,000 plants of various types in the United States and few, if any, are in large cities. This employs hundreds of thousands of hard-working people and provides folks like Kernion with the vehicles they drive, the parts to repair said vehicles, and possibly the clothing they wear.
Then truck drivers (many of whom are also rural) drive these products from the unsavory boondocks into the cities. There, people like Kernion can purchase the goods with the money they earned talking philosophically about what crappy people the ones who feed them, dress them, and provide them with automobiles are.
Sounds legit.
What do you think of this?
Did you hear about this Tweet? What are your thoughts on Kernion and his ilk?
About Daisy
Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, globe-trotting blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, voluntaryism, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. She is widely republished across alternative media and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. Daisy is the best-selling author of 4 books and runs a small digital publishing company. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Well he is a charmer (sarc).
Yeah, there are a lot, but not all, of urban types who look down upon us lowly rural types. They usually go the stereotypes of the uneducated rednecks, hillbillys, or other open mouth breathers.
Granted, in some cases the stereotype fits.
Most of the time it is just a broad brush applied to anyone in those “fly over” states.
Reminds me of a NPR, post 2016 election, pre-inauguration, postmortem. The reporter did a break down of the voters, geophysical location, socio-economic status, and education level.
When discussing those who voted for Trump, you could hear the malice dripping in her voice. She repeatedly pointed out those voters did not have higher education.
I know a lot of highly educated people who cannot change a tire, know that cows have to lactating to give milk, and when asked “Where does hamburger come from?” they respond, “The grocery store!”
I wonder how Mr. Kernion would feel if all those who live in rural areas decided for one year to take off from farming (if they could, this is a hypothetical). Go to Morocco.
What would they think of us then?
I left the large city in NE Illinois for rural life in a freer state.
I am actually quite educated, yet I do know how to change a tire. I know how to keep the wood furnace going.
I milk goats every day (and I’m bottle feeding a calf for the freezer), and I know how our Constitutional Republic is supposed to work.
I know that hens do not need a rooster to lay eggs. I can butcher my own animals, while delivering a fascinating talk about Erickson’s stages of development.
Guess you could say I’m a bit touchy about the assertion that educated folk are clueless about the facts of life and how to be responsible for one’s own food, transportation, and shelter.
you sir sound like the exception to the rule. i grew up in the inner city. i said f. this back in the 80,s and have never looked back. GED in the service and read a boat load in my younger days. learned a life time of wisdom. stay cool
The real test would be if rural folk decided to export all the food, etc that normally gets shipped to big cities for a year. After starving for a while, they might appreciate the rurals a bit more
I think the California sun must have fried Kernion’s brain, lol.
What brain?
What a dingleberry!! He obviously has no idea just whom provides the food he eats or anything! He is a living example of why rural folks like me think city folks are best left in the cities!
Wonder why he thinks we are “bad” people? I personally am not asking him for any sort of help nor do I live off the gubmint teat.
I work for my living and I do live pretty simple.
Wow, just Wow!
Just leaves me shaking my head.
I LOVE your friends response to this twit! I hope the dude gets lots of emails from country and not so country folks telling him what a twit he is 😀
Dawn, “Dingleberry” is a perfect description. I bet his in box is overwhelming ????
That is a level of ignorance that one does not often see. The education system has clearly failed this man.
Actually, that’s a level of honesty you rarely see. The hate is strong in that one. And it’s contagious. I know, because just reading his thoughts made me hate him!
It is what Berkley I’d turning out these days. As they sit in their Starbucks with their head intently bent on their smartphone, they don’t have a clue that miners had to mine the copper that is needed for their smartphones PC computers. As they plug in to recharge they never wonder all the components needed to bring electricity to that electric socket. The best one I ever saw was a brand new Subaru and the owner had a fresh new bumper sticker…Ban Mining!..the disconnect is absolutely unreal.
Oy….where to start….
For starters, Derek who wrote the letter to this….guy…was far kinder than I would have been.
I would have taken great delight in dismembering this feckless twerp’s ignorant comments, dissecting his post word from word and loudly proclaiming to the world my mental superiority over this brain-dead purveyor of leftist “Stupiditude”….
But then, I’m from the city….
Miss Kitty, I admit my first reaction was to blast him with both barrels. I chewed on it a bit and opted to go the route I shared. I hope he enjoyed my email ????
If you eat, you are involved in agriculture!
Just food for thought. ????
As soon as I saw Berkley I knew what was coming.
As has been mentioned above, if he wants to eat, he had better figure out where his food comes from.
.
WHAT A MAROON!!! (Yes, the spelling was intentional.)
It’s truely sad that such an ” educated man is so ignorant of “real” life. Hopefully he’ll become more informed soon because he’s in for a world of hurt if the economy quickly changes.
Sis, ignorance is bliss, until it isn’t…
Just sounds like a wanker.. hopefully one day he will grow up
“Maybe it’s because we “cling to our guns or religion” as a former president quipped.”
And don’t forget that…especially the “guns” part.
That is a lot of it. Blind allegiance is never good nor is being distracted/obsessed over red meat issues.
Read “The Killswitch Chronicles, The Complete Anthologies” by G.R. Carter. 2018 (it says it is printed, but I bought it as an e-book). Eery in its references to disdain for the country folk, gradual abandonment of services for the producers in rural America, ration bars tied to caloric needs, and addiction or dependence on the ‘Grapevine’ – electronic control of everything. And the aftermath of the killswitch (turning it all off). He quotes William Jennings Bryan at the beginning: “Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”
According to Kernion, people who are rural are therefore uneducated. i guess that makes Kernion a bigot?
Why are so many people upset by this person’s comments? In a world where some people believe there are more than two genders, where entire cultures embrace victimhood over something that happened 150 years ago, where millions dig around for quid to follow a pro, this is nothing. NOTHING. Why get upset? I can say dozens of things that would make this teachers comments look like grade school. Would people obsess over that? Come on. There are a lot of things to get aggravated about. This isn’t one of them.
Because it is indicative of the urban attitude of rural America right down the line. If you don’t see it, it’s because you don’t want to see it. He’s tired of lying about it and we’re tired of pretending not to notice or care.
I’ve had just about enough of “demonic entities” occupying the White House calling me “gun toting Bible thumper” and “deplorable”.
We’re angry because we know this is not a “one off”…and pardon me for saying so, but if you aren’t getting that by now, you must have a 2 digit IQ.
Thank you Miss Daisy….for everything important you taught me…. going back years & years ago*…you’re a true warrior for everything that is sane/moral & Godly….and prepping foodstuffs that are wholesome/tasty as well!!!!!!!!!!
….notice to all here, this awesome lady is an example of *”deep waters”*…her knowledge / understanding of history / practical approach to prepping and analysis of events soon to affect all of us, per prepping for what’s coming…is (IMO) unrivaled…
She is the “GOLD STANDARD” of ‘straight-up…no bullshit life/family/freedom/liberty affirming survival!!!!!
…(respect much here)…!!!!! …believe it or not…this female on her own w/ a young child.. and w/ a few dedicated online supporters ( who merely posted & e-mailed knowledge / advice / how-to instructions, actually survived a severe Canadian winter(comfortably).
…she and her progeny made it and have prospered ever since….KUDOS ma’am..and salute…!!!
—————————————————————————————
Thank you so much. It’s really wonderful to hear from you again!
I have been following the world wide loss of grains and meat due to the climate. I also been following the fact we are in the begining of an ice age. It is the people in rural areas raising their own food, canning, learning life skills that will have a leg up. What will that parisite do when the shelves are empty? When the cities do not have a blade of grass because it was eaten by the masses like in North Korea. I am trying to adjust my gardening to accomadate the changes in the weather, to include enlarging my greenhouse. I do not see how he contributes to our world other than being a parasite. I feel safer being rural.
Ever notice that University academics often seem to be the most intolerant and hateful among the human species. Is it a superiority complex fueled by student adulation to get a good grade? Is it Godlessness in that they have made themselves gods over their student fiefdom and believe they know all…maybe they have just been indoctrinated to hate in the university environment and just can’t help themselves. The fact that they would expose their hatred and intolerance means they are comfortable in the fact that those around them believe as they do…they choose to live a in the cloistered environment of academia when there is a wonderful world outside..a real world… one of love and joy, a world outside of the propaganda pits of this world.
What an idiot. Ugh and we wonder why our country is in the dire straits it is in. He is actually a professor? How do I encourage my kids to go to college, if this is the idiocy they will be taught?? Money down the drain.
What this guy appears to be doing is a back handed way of calling the rustics in their element a basket of deplorables. Their politics does not serve his utopian agenda of A Brave New World. It’s a code of mistrust of some sort because such independence is a way of life that cannot be bought.
Read a book years ago by Taylor Caldwell called, “Your Sins and Mine”. It is about an pseudo-apocalyptic event where a noxious, toxic weed begins to take over the world. People are starving, etc. City dwellers begin to accuse the farmers and rural people of hoarding their food and start a war against them. Very insightful about urban ignorance of the real world.
I am going to try to avoid these triggering items. The guy is an airhead. All he has to do is not get fired and California will make him a millionaire. As a California taxpayer I am having to pay for this creep’s food, from rural areas.
I must admit that I’m beginning to feel exactly like that about city folk.
Now that our manufacturing base has been decimated and there are virtually NO PRODUCTION jobs left in America, why exactly do we need cities?
It seems to me that the only things being produced in cities today are blue and white collar crime of all descriptions, drug use and dependency, abortion mills, and Godless Communists calling themselves “Democrats”.
If we’re going to be in the “business” of justifying lifestyles then let’s do the best job we can, shall we? Trying to maintain the unsustainable city lifestyle is what has put this Nation into an un-repayable 23 TRILLION dollars and climbing.
Who put us in this debt? CITY DWELLING politicians elected by CITY DWELLERS.
After all, living within your means is SO yesterday. So banal. So “rural”.
And if we’re talking morality, let’s look to the plains of Shinar, where the first “high rise” was constructed…the Tower of Babel. “Let us set ourselves to build a tower that will reach unto Heaven so we might challenge God!” Yeah. That turned out REAL well! And you city dwelling dumb asses are still at it today.
I have seen your cities and found them wanting. Stay in them and rot. It’s no more than you deserve.
Oh how educated and superior Kernion is for he has chosen to live among his own kind who see no problem defecating on the sidewalk and shooting up among nature in the Bay area parks. His comments go beyond idiocy and can only hope that he embraces the breadlines of his socialist future, while I eat fresh from my garden spinach salad.
Oh well, who ever said a degree in philosophy actually taught you anything.
Hey, my degree in philosophy taught me two things—1) not to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy (which I take as beneficial) and 2) (this one is serious) there are two ways of thinking, a) that which is derived from the ancient Greek philosophers, which philosophers call “Greek thought” which is mainly based on appearances and contemplation, and b) the thinking that came from the ancient Hebrews through the Bible, hence the philosophers call it “Hebrew thought” which is based on observation and action. In short, form vs. function. Most philosophy professors don’t teach Hebrew thought because they don’t understand it. Hebrew thought gave us the Reformation, modern science, the music of Bach and Händel, equality among citizens (no divine right of kings to rule) and other ideas that make up modern civilization. It would take books to back up all these claims in detail (in fact, a book was written detailing just the science aspect).
Oh, a third lesson: western philosophy taken to its logical conclusion is ultimately self-contradictory and leads to emptiness. Why do graduate work for that?
I have a song for this city liberal:
“Greeeen Acres is the place to be
Faaar, far away from Ber—ke—-ley
Land spreadin’ out so far and wide
Keep California just give me that countryside!!!”
I live in a rural area. That being said, I don’t expect my choice of rural living to be paid for by others. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You want to live in a low/no tax area, don’t expect to have the same services as areas that aren’t low/no tax.
Don’t rail about “welfare” and other social programs then expect me to pay for high speed internet.
Don’t expect professionals to flock to your area if your schools are under funded . When your state legislature focuses more on social issues (and is willing to spend millions defending a law they passed when odds are it will be struck down by the courts), it isn’t a selling point. It is hard to understand why people vote against their own best interests.
Xenophobia doesn’t help either – unless you are Native American, we are all immigrants – be it 60 years or 360 years since your ancestors came to the US.
Change happens faster than ever. The 1950s are long gone. I totally understand from where the UC Berkeley instructor is coming from but his tone/choice of messaging leaves a lot to be desired.
Well, I liked “Derek’s” email response to him. I thought it was tastefully written. I believe the professor is ignorant and deceived as are many sadly. I just pray they all wake up soon.
When the SHTF that F’ tard and his ilk will be cut off from rural food supply. Ow gee shucks and darn it all.
Us goof balls will still beating when the souls of his shoes will start looking like steak.
Most likely he will already be dead because he didn’t have OMG a GUN. Holly shit Batman he was robbed,his wife,children beat and worse done to them.
Good luck SHIT 4 BRAINS
John j
Living in the pan handle of northern IDAHO. Rural; Hell ya pop 1,646
P.S.
Lived in bay area(22 yrs) until escaping in 98. Don’t come up here you and you kind are not welcome!
Uh.. he lives in CA. A state with a GDP that qualifies it to be its own country. Plenty of food is raised in CA so I highly doubt he’d starve. And I always get a good laugh when John J and others of his ilk assume that he doesn’t have a gun – quite the tactical error. Plenty of “liberals” have guns.
And you might rethink your “don’t come up here”. Odds are the majority of land owners in ID are former CA residents. Money talks.