THE NO. 6 song on the Billboard country music songs chart is "Fly Over States" by Jason Aldean. It's a good song.

But it's good in spite of an annoying brand of bigotry that is rampant in country music. "Fly Over States," like so many other Nashville songs, treats city folks like idiots.

Such a sweeping generalization is, of course, pointless. But it is a convenient premise for a song. Everyone loves an underdog, so why not make yourself the underdog, railing against the faceless, small-minded rich folks on the coast who just don't get it, despite all their highfalutin education.

There are a number of reasons this is nonsense, starting with the fact that not every city dweller is a well-heeled businessman harboring an active hatred of the heartland. Nor is each Midwestern farmhand a spiteful ogre with a grudge against people who live in high-rises. But everyone loves a competition. It's us versus them.

"Fly Over States" begins, appropriately enough, on a plane, with "a couple of guys in first class" looking out the window to Oklahoma below. "Who'd want to live down there, in the middle of nowhere," one of them asks. Our singer, who has observed this exchange, assumes these men have never met a farmer and are unfamiliar with Indiana roadways. The assumption is that, if only those two could meet a farmer in Indiana, they would what? Clap wildly every time they passed over a soybean field? Maybe Aldean should just be satisfied that those two jerks will never darken his farmhouse door.

What, exactly, are songs like "Fly Over States" trying to prove with their contrived insecurities? Well, they're not trying to prove anything--they're trying to connect with listeners and maximize downloads. The easiest way to do that is through an "us versus them" scenario.