Does New Jersey Suck?

Lets be perfectly honest with ourselves. New Jersey is a great state to make fun of for a number of reasons. One that comes to the top of my head is the attempt by any New Jersey citizen to defend their native state. Its just sad to watch them try to list great men, places, or anything worth wild about the state.

You might ask how do I know that New Jersey sucks? Gosh, I didn't know people needed that one explained to them. I guess 2 + 2 is a bit hard for you. Ok, I was merely going to submit a three year old article on why New Jersey sucks, but I decided to do some "objective" research to see if the state really does blow. I conducted two independent web search trials over a two-day time span (anymore waste of time on New Jersey would have made me crazy). My search effort included both positive and negative sites, articles, or images of New Jersey. What I discovered is that alot of people hate New Jersey. Here are just some of the examples of whatt I gleaned from the Internet:

NIJIT Sucks
New Jersey Sucks Website
Blog post about why they hate New Jersey
Why one should fear New Jersey blog
Jersey Sucks Website
"Why I Hate New Jersey" feature comedy

There were more, but I thought it best to highlight for time purposes the best of the best if you will. All had wonderful things to offer in terms of New Jersey bashing. One blog's comment board had this to say: "if u look at a map of the united states, it kinda looks like new york is pooping out new jersey. new jersey is new york's shit!!" Now that made me laugh.

Now one site in particular had some very good reasons for disliking New Jersey, but before I get to that I must cover the other half of my reasearch. There aren't many who "love" New Jersey. Only one website expressly stated "I love New Jersey" and it offered nothing but a message that they will be putting stuff up soon. Damn, I can't wait!!!

There were other sites, but even while trying to defend New Jersey, they made the state look even worse. For example, when a state has to sponsor a tour titled, "A State That Doesn't Hate" it has major problems. Or when some guy has to create "New Jersey Doesn't Suck!" t-shirts ... well, thats just sad. Name me another state that would do that. I could see New York's new campaign. Instead of "I love New York" it would be "I don't hate New York." When a state starts on the defensive its lost the battle, war, and all its people should be subjected to commie rule.

Hold on!!! I have more. When someone put a 24 Hour Internet Cafe SECOND on a list of the "Top 10 Cool Places in Jersey" the state has issues. Better still, is it good to say: "Appreciate NJ! We're the one and only state where you will find a bowling alley and Diner in almost every town you visit!" How delightfully White Trash!

I could go on, but I want to top off this diatribe with a word or two about Al Mink's "A List of Reasons Why New Jersey Sucks." Although biased in his opinion, Mr. Mink is a native of the state. As he said: "I was born in New Jersey. I lived 30 years of my life in New Jersey. But 2½ years ago, I jumped at the chance and fled that hellhole, even trampling a few auto insurance companies on the way out! After escaping to the beautiful scenery and quiet sanity of Central Pennsylvania, I realized even more just how bad New Jersey sucks. Now that I have left that damned dystopia, I'm NEVER EVER going back!"

First of all, I don't know what is true or not in this list, but from just some of the "fact checking" I did, it looks good. So like the custom agents who check 1% of the containers coming into the United States and assume the other 99% are clean, let us do the same. I will not bore you with all the facts mentioned by Mr. Mink, but I do want to highlight a few of them. New Jersey has the highest auto insurance rates in the nation. New Jersey has the highest property and cigarette tax in the nation. In addition to the the second highest statewide housing costs (73% above the national average), third highest business costs, fourth highest health insurance costs, and the fifth highest tax-supported debt in the nation. New Jersey collects income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, sin taxes, casino taxes, tourism taxes, and highway tolls. All of this combined to place New Jersey's cost of living 32% above the national average.

I could go on, but I feel my case has been made. New Jersey does suck. Lets hope the people that live there don't find out. Well, they probably do know, but are just too dumb to do anything about it. As my final send off I would like to make note that "Atlantic City will always be a cut-rate resort compared to Las Vegas" (FYI: I use to live in Las Vegas).