Bloomberg's Disconnect With Rural Realities Beyond Farming

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a special, special person. And yes, I mean “special” in the euphemistic sense.

The notoriously anti-gun billionaire has surged in the Democratic polls in recent weeks, sitting in third place as of this writing, boasting a nearly two-point lead over Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The former Republican appears to be making a serious splash among Democratic voters.

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However, comments from Bloomberg surfaced over the weekend that may well shoot him in the foot.

Bloomberg, talking about information technology, argued “you have to have a lot more gray matter” to do IT than to farm.

Says a man who has never even had so much as a vegetable garden.

You see, if he had, he’d have learned that agriculture is a lot more involved than just dig a hole, drop in a seed, cover it up, and water it from time to time. There’s a whole lot more than that. Being a farmer means more than just planting corn, it means being able to understand what those spots on the leaves mean, what that white fuzzy-looking stuff is, how to get rid of those, when to irrigate, when not to irrigate, when to fertilize, when not to fertilize, how to repair your equipment, how to navigate the legal side of agriculture, and so on.

And this is the stuff I know just from looking at farming from the outside. I’ve never actually been a farmer. I’ve just talked to a few; enough so I have an idea that there’s a lot more to it.

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So, by now, you’re asking what this has to do with guns other than showing the money man for every gun-grabbing group is a jackass? Well, wouldn’t that really be enough?

Of course, it’s not the only reason I’m touching on this today, though. No, it’s because his lack of understanding about agriculture–probably the most important industry in world history–stems from a similar place as his staunch anti-gun stance. That place is urban elitism.

You see, he thinks farming is for stupid people, that they can’t comprehend information technology, just like he thinks rural areas support gun rights because they’re just too stupid to know what’s good for them. They need their betters such as himself to tell them what to do.

He thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, and he’s not.

After all, the smartest person in the room would at least understand that agriculture is far more than that. They’d also understand that a city like New York has a much larger police department than Podunk County, Nebraska. While the NYPD has more officers than many towns have residents, Podunk County has Joe on patrol in the middle of the night.

Of course, Podunk County also had a murder last year while the NYPD started investigating one last night.

Honestly, the two places are quite different. They may follow the same federal laws and speak the same language while sharing at least some of the same culture, but they’re not the same thing. The challenges in a place like mythical Podunk County are quite different than somewhere like New York City.

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Anyone with half a brain should be able to understand that. The fact that Bloomberg can’t illustrates that he just doesn’t get “flyover country” at all.

If he can’t understand something as critically vital as farming as more than just digging a hole and dropping a seed, it’s unlikely he’ll ever understand how anyone not surrounded by security 24/7 could ever want or need a firearm.

As for the constitutional protection of the right to do so, remember that this is the man who banned the Big Gulp. Do you really think he understands rights, either?

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