Berkeley Instructor: “Rural Americans” Are “Bad People Who Have Made Bad Life Decisions”

Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times,

An instructor at the University of California-Berkeley stirred anger after he called Americans who live in rural areas “bad people” who deserve “uncomfortable lives” on Twitter.

Jackson Kernion, according to his website, has been teaching multiple philosophy courses as a graduate student instructor at UC-Berkeley since 2013.

In the now-deleted Twitter post published on Nov. 5, Kernion explained why he thought it is plausible to shame rural Americans.

“I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans. they, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions,” Kernion wrote.

“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.”

Before turning to critique the rural American lifestyle, Kernion wrote in another post about affordable healthcare for rural Americans.

He said he believed it would mean they have to be subsidized by “those who choose a more efficient way of life.”

“Rural healthcare should be expensive!” he wrote.

“And that expense should be borne by those who choose rural America!”

“It should be uncomfortable to live in rural America. It should be uncomfortable to not move,” he added.

America’s rural communities, which tend to be older and poorer than urban areas, usually face more challenges than their urban counterparts in accessing health care, internet, and other services.

A survey conducted by Harvard’s School of Public Health, NPR News, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports this May that four in ten rural Americans have encountered problems affording medical bills, housing, or food in the past few years.

Kernion tried to back his points with economic arguments about not making rural life “artificially cheaper.” Still, it didn’t take long for that discussion to escalate into shaming the rural American population.

The next day, Kernion wrote on Twitter in what appears to be an apology that he “made a bad post” and would “reflect on it.”

“My tone is way crasser and meaner than I like to think I am,” he wrote. He eventually deactivated his Twitter account altogether.

UC-Berkeley has yet to make any response regarding the internet backslash.

-----------------------------------------------------
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal

-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Click to visit the TBP Store for Great TBP Merchandise

96
Leave a Reply

avatar
  Subscribe  
Notify of
Solutions Are Obvious
Solutions Are Obvious

These are the pinheads academia is turning out.

If there were no rural population to toil in the fields this guy would have starved to death a long time ago, before he became a BS philosophy professor.

I bet this guy votes; democrat.

M G
M G

I wondered if you saw my email addy?

ZeroZee0
ZeroZee0

Really? And I wonder how he’s going to fare and feed himself when The Shit Hits The Fan…….. Can’t WAIT for Asshats like him, with NO Real-Life Skills that would ensure Survival, to go The Way of the Dodo and become nothing but a Sad and Pathetic Footnote in History……..

ottomatik
ottomatik

Cannibalism.
Coming to an urban hell hole near you.

Apple
Apple

Never met the guy, but hate him none the less.

No legions of rural homeless, or welfare queens. Poor maybe, but self sufficient, and in need of nothing this guy teaches.

Anonymous
Anonymous

works both ways ? “City food should be expensive!”

gman
gman

“city food should be expensive”

it will be.

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

This is nothing more than the Bolshevik bank rollers identifying the enemy for the easily confused useful idiots. As they come rolling up your driveway they will have the blessings and support of the state.
History doesn’t repeat itself. People repeat history.

Pequiste
Pequiste

“History doesn’t repeat itself. People repeat history.”
– Fleabaggs

This is an important truth you have stated most elegantly. A great insight.

IluvCO2
IluvCO2

As they come rolling up my driveway, they will be lined up in the red dot, and the german shepherds will be loosed.

mark
mark

Have a quarter mile to slow them down before they hit the drive way alarm…and soon the first camera.

Lock and load…hoochie coo.

M G
M G

What season is it?

Urban Cuck season?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYQPzPDLxLE

Articles of Confederation

Saved for later.

yahsure
yahsure

The first person who approaches the gate with bolt cutters… I could never live in a big city.

TampaRed

good one flea,is that a bagster original ?
if so you ought to copyright it,it’s a great line–

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs

Red.
My 16 year old nephew came up with it towards the end of a history course in the mid 90’s. I was proud of him.

M G
M G

In his Master’s Thesis, Henry Kissinger made a comment that stuck with me all this time:

History doesn’t repeat itself; it is more like a blind man screaming out the answers to the questions none dare ask.

I thought that was an interesting way to put it and now, it repeats itself in my mind and I dare not ask.

KaD
KaD

Where does this imbecile think his FOOD comes from?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Recycled unicorn poop.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Whole Foods, you maroon. LOL.

The Cold Backhand of God
The Cold Backhand of God

The imbecile will find out where food really comes from once he realizes the global warming scare is a lie and that Southern hospitality wears thin where fools are concerned.

Pequiste
Pequiste

Tis nothing but The Philosophy of the ignorant fucking moron. A vacuous mental state manifested by the most jejune platitudes, imbecilic generalities, and rote regurgitation of the most au courant nonsense perpetrated by an Academy not worthy of its name.

Plus this idiot Kernion is an complete fucking asshole. And probably a Trotskyite to boot.

All in all a paradigmatic parasitic pathetic putz from The Left Coast: U.C. Berkeley’s best & brightest.

old white guy
old white guy

WELL SAID. I WONDER WHETHER OR NOT HE WOULD UNDERSTAND THAT HE HAD BEEN INSULTED? Ooops, caps by accident, they can stay there.

mark
mark

That’s ok Old White Guy…I’m old too and my hearing isn’t what it used to be, but Pequiste gets the color commentary word smith award for this thread.

Articles of Confederation

Well plus with Pequiste, I have to DuckDuckGo some of his vernacular. Learning is good.

Hollow man
Hollow man

I live in a rural area to avoid asshole like him. Why would anyone want to see sidewalks, pavement and homeless (guess they are smarter for living in the cities) day after day. I see trees, water , rivers, grass, deer, cows, horses, coons, snakes, rats, skunks, frogs, fish and on and on. What does he see everyday? I see life in its natural forms it is beautiful.

grace country pastor

?

mark
mark
Overthecliff
Overthecliff

Like a transvestite these ass holes need to be marginalized. To do anything but tell them to get fucked and get out gives them credibility. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

Anonymous
Anonymous

comment image

We’re at a solid 6, moving toward 7.

Mary Christine
Mary Christine

7 is where it gets really ugly. I don’t think they have the guts, or the manpower for house to house confiscation. Unless they are even more stupid than we realize. But they will just make it harder and harder to buy guns and ammunition, and come up with more and more reasons to confiscate using bogus laws, like Red Flag.

overthecliff
overthecliff

Thereare some Missouri wimmen I want on my flanks.

gman
gman

“how we burned later in the camps ….”

nkit
nkit

comment image

old white guy
old white guy

Don’t know who she is but WOW is not adequate.

Articles of Confederation

Can’t see her ring finger, damn it! 🙂

TampaRed

would you ever even want to take a chance on a gal who handles a gun like that?

Articles of Confederation

YES. Life is risky!!!

Mygirl...maybe

Heh, I live out in rural Texas, the sounds of gunfire on the weekends echoes off the surrounding landscape. A young woman lives across the way from me, her daddy built her a gun range and she’s Olympic quality. Then, there’s my good friend’s fourteen yo son, a champion marksman. I dare anyone to enter this area and hope to confiscate guns….did I mention there’s a large population of feral hogs? Does anyone realize how fast hogs can strip down a carcass? Wonder if a certain Berkeley
‘professor’ understands where his food comes from?

Hardscrabble Farmer
Hardscrabble Farmer

He’s right, you know. Be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.

M G
M G

My friend went to hunt wild hog… here’s what he discovered. They have a big pen of feral hogs gathered up in the woods, like they do around here.

So, they pick their hunting spots and then, the landowner/wild pig farm owner lets however many “wild” hogs go for the weekend’s hunters. Seventeen hunters? Maybe 20 big tusked boars.

What’s sporting about that?

RichBob said he sat in a lawn chair by his camp site and just waited for one to come by.

That sucks… He won’t go back.

TampaRed

there’s places where it’s year round open season on hogs–
they cause so much damage & breed like,well, like rabbits,that many guys just shoot em & leave em lying there–

Poolside at the Decline
Poolside at the Decline

How about “damn!”

bob
bob

Gotta love a PPQ.

Jay Dee
Jay Dee

You must have missed the part about the Harvard BA and that ’18-’19 school year was spent on Planet Manhattan at NYU…..this screams so predictable.

Philosophy can be an excellent mental exercise to sit around and BS about. As a field of study? Not so much.

And to those who say they moved to the country to get away from people like this? Amen. Personally I think “the country” will become more attractive…’especially to older types like me (I’m 61). Why?…….you can live in the country – and still have stuff like The Internet.

Anonymous
Anonymous

My first thought was it’s rural Americans that grow process and truck food to this ass hats city , produce the fuel and power to light heat & cool his sorry ass shit it’s rural people that grow and age the grapes for his buttery Chardonnay
Screw this egg head who but I bag of shit

MrLiberty
MrLiberty

Because that small market down the street from his overpriced loft in town grows all the food they sell, raises all the animals they sell, etc. I guess it must all happen on the roof or in the basement….right?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Nonsense.

Urbanites’ food comes from artisanal producers in charming, spiritually-advanced societies.

Anonymous
Anonymous

You mean like the mythical modern nigger heaven of Wakunda ???

Mushroom Cloud
Mushroom Cloud

Lol . Still can’t have a serious conversation with anyone who actually willingly wasted two plus hours of their precious life watching that make believe trash…

bigfoot
bigfoot

“pro city” That is rich. What is reality for this fool? I wonder if he knows that his eggs come out of chicken’s butt and not just an egg carton?

Poolside at the Decline
Poolside at the Decline

Collectivists (dba progressives) like cities for primarily 2 reasons.

(i) cities are more efficient for the delivery and distribution of products & resources (yes, I know food is grown & resources are extracted elsewhere, but on a per capita basis cities are still more efficient, primarily having to do with the problem of “the last mile”.

(ii) urban populations are less independent and thus more easily controled thru the use of state sanctioned violence. Thus imposing on citizens “what’s good for you” is easier. Too much resistance???- just close the city and choke the flow of resources. A Collectivist’s dream.

Progressives… Ideas so good they are mandatory.

Reluctant Warrior
Reluctant Warrior

Why you numskull.

Bob P
Bob P

Grateful for the terrific education I got at Berkeley, I’d given money every year to the university since I graduated in 1990. Because of nonsense like this I’ve stopped.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Congratulations!

It’s damn important to NEVER contribute funds to the Academic Complex of today, even if you learned and had good times there, years ago. Honor, if you will, your friends and memories, but do not support the current madness in any manner.

old white guy
old white guy

And the mental midgets at Berkeley are what????

Hank
Hank

Just another liberal with a “hate has no home here” placard in their window

The Cold Backhand of God
The Cold Backhand of God

The “COEXIST” bumper stickers are especially ironic.

Bilco

This is actually a good thing. Being that there are so many left wing useful idiots that actually listen to people like this. They can all stay in their cities. However it would be nice to be a fly on the wall.When the SHTF in the cities. To see this idiot go out into the street and give Jamal a great big fuzzy liberal hug.

Martel's Hammer
Martel's Hammer

Yes please gather in the cities so we can cut off the power, water, roads/rail/air and let that games begin……

Crawfisher
Crawfisher

I spent a year working as a contractor to the MIT maintenance department, not the academic side. Every day I looked for the professor who created Obama Care – forgot his name. If I ever saw him on the street, I would’ve punched him.

Hardscrabble Farmer
Hardscrabble Farmer

A few years ago we used to rent out the guest cottage through HomeAway and we had a couple from St. Louis stay with us for a month. They were both high school teachers back home and she was finishing up some degree work at Dartmouth just up the road. They were nice enough, but the guy never came outside except to get into his car. We pretty much leave people to their own devices and just go about our daily business. One day I was in one of the main gardens grubbing for potatoes and I noticed the guy had come out to watch me from a distance. I was kind of hoping he’d start up a conversation but he just kept staring at me with this puzzled look on his face. Eventually I paused and looked up at him and asked something like “What’s up” or “How’s it going” and he just wrinkled his nose and said “That’s disgusting.” I had no idea what he was referring to- me digging into the hilled potatoes by hand, or working in the garden in general so I asked him, “What is?” He said it was disgusting that I “kept my potatoes in the dirt”.

It took me a few minutes to get it out of him, but he had not only never seen how potatoes were grown, but thought that they came off of a bush or plant like blueberries and that I was simply storing them in the ground. He wasn’t joking either, it was a complete shock to him to discover that potatoes were a tuber.

I’m not going to say I won him over during his visit or that any fundamental shift in his understanding of rural life had taken place, but it illustrated for me the disconnect between the educated, degree holding class and regular human beings. To him potatoes came in a bag, you bought it at the store and anyone who handled them or grew them or in any way came into contact with soil was gross and dirty. These are not intelligent people simply because they have a credential, nor are they particularly curious about learning anything that is outside of their very narrow range of interests.

I don’t particularly care what this numb nuts thinks about rural folks because he’s just another hypocrite living a lie. If anything it helps to identify the abject retards that make up the thinking class of the modern era. He is dependent upon us for his survival, not the other way around.

Articles of Confederation

I used to joke with my wife that most people think food grows in supermarket cellophane. I was only kidding until now.

Farmers – not Big Ag – have ruled the world for most of history. All of the West will relearn that the hard way.

Martel's Hammer
Martel's Hammer

Well, actually Feudal Lords and the hereditary elites ruled the world because they owned the farms that produced the food. Food insecurity has been the norm throughout history and only recently in the first world has that flipped where the poor have access to an overabundance of calories (mostly sugar and its derivatives in the form of carbs).

Synder of Doom Porn fame is overstating the case on the 2019 harvests in the Midwest but we could see a situation where hunger does return to the first world. Probably more likely from a disease vector-like African Swine Flu (aka Pig Ebola) rather than weather though a Maunder Minimum would result in a massive shortfall of production also.

Articles of Confederation

Good point. I should have said that those who control the supply of food have controlled the world for most of history.

Ginger
Ginger

Just look at Cuba’s box of groceries a week. A person only has one week of food till the next week, just enough calories to make it till next pick-up day.

Once had on file the origional amount they were supposed to get, included twenty grams of chicken promised but never given. We are talking about less than an ounce of chicken a week, and they couldn’t even get that.

Hard to rebel when one is waiting for their next box of groceries. and ever seen a fat Cubian on a pbs show about the wonders of Cuba?

Mygirl...maybe

The largest dairy farm in the country filed for chapter 11. Small farmers are going under at an alarming rate, soon all there will be is Big Ag and imports from Mexico. I have the worst soil and a serious problem with rattlesnakes and other critters so I grow what I can in containers and anything that holds dirt gets something planted in it. I was in the store awhile back and saw roasting pans on sale…cheap. Clerk asked me why I had bought two, I said to make planters and she smiled and said “you must be from the south.”

Articles of Confederation

See if you can’t convince arborists to dump yards of mulch for you and just let it marinate. You may not have ChipDrop available, but I bet there are tree services looking to unload 15 yards of mulch at a time.

In 3 years your soil will be black where you’ve laid it.

Hardscrabble Farmer
Hardscrabble Farmer

I second that. Wood chips are are one of the best soil amendments you will find.

mark
mark

Yea Farmer/AoC,

I’m building a house in deep woods, all the trees will be ground up and pilled in big hills in a pasture.

It is going to be a massive amount black gold.

Articles of Confederation

Not a single wood chip or scrap of compostable material leaves my property. I’ve used an ungodly amount of cardboard and mulch to kill off Bermuda grass…it’s the only natural remedy I’ve found, outside of growing Monarda fistulosa everywhere to shade it out.

mark
mark

Yep, me too.

I’m in an area called the Triassic Basin in north central NC, terrible soil on my place, hard packed clay in the pastures, so I have had black gold trucked in then tilled it in for my gardens, orchard, and arbors.

I dig significant sized holes for my fruit and nut trees, bring in the black gold, and mulch, mulch, mulch.

Excited about the massive amount tree mulch I will have in a few years.

Articles of Confederation

Mark, if you haven’t seen the Back to Eden film (free), watch it. This crippled Nam Vet changed how I look at everything.

https://www.backtoedenfilm.com/watchfreeorganicgardeningmovie.html

KeyserSusie
KeyserSusie

Your comments continue to resonate with me. When I lived 100 miles north of you in Caribou Maine my preteen older brother would work picking taters in the fields close to where we lived. After they were done with harvest I enjoyed going to the picked over fields and finding spuds still buried. I have fond memories of the hay fields and playing in huge haystacks. And picking wild blueberries. And my 7 year old self would explore without supervision, catching trout in the sloughs beyond the anti aircraft battery at the edge of the AF base.

Twelve years later when I worked at McD’s I learned how to turn 100 pound sacks of potatoes into french fries. Peel, slice, wash, blanch and stack up enough for the day’s sales.
Say what you may about big M, they had the best dang fries. I was amazed when we began using frozen pre packaged product that the taste was still good.

Someone asked me to share this video with you. It is a celebration of skills unknown to city folks. Nostalgia…
Grandfather…

Which reminds me of this tune. And Grandmother.

Articles of Confederation

Canning and preservation…good skills. My wife had to pay $400 for a stupid USDA certification on proper canning so she could sell candied jalapenos. I wonder WTF certifications Daniel Boone had to take.

overthecliff
overthecliff

The product of St. Louis Schools reflects the quality of their teachers.

starfcker
starfcker

You store your potatoes in dirt? Yuck. Maybe this Kernian guy has a point.

starfcker
starfcker

On a serious note, could we punish this guy by making him walk through a 600 foot chicken house barefoot?

nkit
nkit

Everyone knows food doesn’t come from Farmers:

“White farmers think we depend on them for food supplies. They must wake up and smell the coffee because the food we eat in SA does not come from farms owned by whites, it comes from Shoprites, Pick n Pay and Spars” News update South Africa reports Zokwana comments.

‘The food we eat in SA does not come from farms owned by whites, it comes from Shoprites, pick n pay and spars’

gman
gman

heh. let them eat shoprites ….

The Cold Backhand of God
The Cold Backhand of God

I’m 55 and recently learned cashews grow on trees.
No shit, I had no clue.

Jdog
Jdog

The older I get, the more I realize that liberalism is based in ignorance. Once you understand how the world really works, you realize that liberalism cannot ever work. It is based on fallacies and prejudice and a basic lack of understanding of human nature and the basic laws of physics.
Once you reach a certain point of understanding the world and yourself, you have no choice but to become conservative, and the true conservatives are libertarian .

Hardscrabble Farmer
Hardscrabble Farmer

It seems overly simplistic, but it’s a precise observation. I think it’s a big part of why they’ve worked so hard on making math impossible for children to learn.

bob
bob

Brilliant, Jdog!

bob
bob

Cocksuckers abound. Even out where I live. CDA’s getting overrun with cocksuckers. Wrinkly, old, sweater-tied-loosely-around-the-neck, liberal cocksuckers with money, and young, fat, pink-haired, patchouli-wearing, panhandling cocksuckers alike. Fuckin’ punk asked me the other day how I got my beard so long. Told him I had it before they became a fad, and I’ll have it long after beards quit being a fad. The stench of liberals is maddening, and the last decade the stench of liberals in north ID has become much stronger. Liberals do not move, or migrate. They simply infest. Like disease-ridden cockroaches. We’re way more than a day’s walk from the burgeoning shithole of the northwest that is Coeur d’Alene, but it makes us wonder when the diseased fuckers will be our neighbors.

Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson

Do not move from your city! If you do choose to move out of your city due to the rats, feces, needles, gangs, or unilateral income transfer agents, move to another city! Cities are the only viable place for you! Rural areas are poor, boring, backward, dirty and isolating!

Peter Pan
Peter Pan

Since his “city life” is sooo wonderful, I wonder if he has volunteered to help pick up homeless crap in SanFran?

Jo Miller
Jo Miller

Seriously? What does he think he is eating every day? If it weren’t for these unfit “Rural” citizens that work their butts off to feed him and all the other people in this country on their rural farms he would starve! Well deserved! I was raised on a 1200 acre farm that produced corn, soy beans, wheat and popcorn. Think he hasn’t ever consumed any of these?

Articles of Confederation

It’s people like him who think rural folks are stupid and that explains their belief in God. Au contraire. It stems from being outside all day and watching the cogs and gears of nature do what it does, down to the tiniest beneficial nematode. I’ve never interacted with a more complex machine.

Jdog
Jdog

This guy both an asshole and an idiot. He has obviosly never lived anywhere near a rural area or even been to one. The stupidity that the left represents must be seen to be believed. The only hope for this country is an economic depression to re establish some reality to the masses.

Marty smith
Marty smith

For someone teaching at UC Berkely, I think he should be intelligent enough to know the results of many surveys regarding the health of people living in cities compared to those in rural america.
The results abundantly show that people who live in rural america are Healthier than the people who live in cities.
Largely due to the considerably unhealthier air quality from lack of trees and other vegetation that naturally purifies the air as well as things like quality of city water and the chemicals added to it or used in processing the water and the affects they have on our bodies both internally as well as what it does to our skin.hair,teeth, etc.
Even the increased stress levels and lack of physical activities that city folk experience are key factors.
Us rural folk usually use well water that is 100% natural, both to drink and shower in. Our morning routines alone, most often require more physical activity than a lot of city folk get in a full day, and there isnt much to stress out about since we know the names of every one of our neighbors even if they are 1-40 acres in any direction and we all look out for each others well being and trust each other enough that we often leave the everything unlocked when we leave the house.
Our lifestyle may be different from his, but the fact that he is unfortunate not having been able to or allow himself to see it or experience and take part in it for himself. Does nothing more than make his comment a total hypocritically based statement from someone with superiority issues that thinks that they are better than us rural folk. Basically just another WHITE YUPPIE TRASH TALKING DEMOCRAT!!!!

fred
fred

he’s from berkely, give him a break, he’s mentally challenged…what a horeses d*ck this turd is! shitty life is fine for those who like that garbage. the rest can do what they please without any comment from the turd gallery.

gman
gman

“rural americans are bad people”

not yet.

pretty soon though.

gman
gman

most people seem to have the attitude that the rural communities are self-supporting. they are not. most rural areas are more like banana republics – they produce one or two goods at most for trade with the outside world , but must import absolutely everything else they need. they are completely dependent on the outside world for their lifestyle. almost no community in a rural area is at all independent in the sense of a 19th century village that can grow and manufacture all it needs with no outside support.

in fact the cities are far more effectively independent than are the rural areas. cities have multiple resource supports – roads, air travel, sea lanes, financial industry funding, and banking support, not to mention residual farming and water sources – whereas rural areas frequently have little to none of any of this except perhaps two or three minor highways passing by.

for rural areas to achieve actual independence will require them to regress to 19th century modes of living, which most people won’t tolerate and can’t do anyway. be careful about any conflict with the cities, such conflict may not turn out the way you think.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

OK, G-man.

gman
gman

“ok, gman”

I’m detecting sarcasm. care to explain why I’m mistaken?

Discover more from The Burning Platform

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading