Flip,
Yes I was born and raised here as was my father. His father before him came to NJ around 1900, so we have only been here a bit over 100 years. My distant ancestors hail from Massachusetts and New Hampshire where they got off the ship Elizabeth in 1634. My earliest connection to New Jersey (that I know of) was when my ancestor 1st Lt. Benjamin Kimball (1st New Hampshire Regiment) marched through my town during the "Retreat Across New Jersey" in November/December 1776 and again in January 1777 after the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. He was just travelling through with Washington's Army and didn't settle here. As a matter of fact, he never got back to New Hampshire either since he was killed by Indians during Sullivan's Indian Expedition in 1779. I do know more than a few people locally who can trace their New Jersey ancestry back to before the American Revolution.
I don't have a personal gripe with you and it is a free country so you can stay in NJ or leave, as is your wish. I however am a native New Jerseyan and despite its shortcomings and flaws, I am proud to live here in a place where more battles of the American Revolution were fought than any other state, where the lightbulb and phonograph were invented, where the first fully submersible submarine was built, the Colt revolver, the first drive in, the first American steam railroad, first National Historical Park, the oldest highway in America, first baseball game, first professional basketball game and where people like George Washington, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein etc. etc. lived worked and fought.
New Jersey is my home and will always be a part of me. Imagine if you will that I willingly came into your home to live and then told everyone who would listen that it sucked and was a filthy stinking hole. Even if I had some merit in saying so, how would you feel if I, as a virtual stranger, came in and did that ?
I agree with you on some of what you said. Many New Jerseyan's feel the same way and have the same frustrations. At least 45% of us are not stupid, we can see and have lived through what has happened here politically and socially and the last thing we need is someone else coming here and trumpeting every problem we have in the mistaken belief that we hadn't already noticed.
XRdsRev,
You give an excellent summation of your family and some of the high points of the history of NJ. But it is just that, history. I am speaking of what is happening now. The people running this state are crapping on that history and creating a mess.
I don't find fault with your pride in where you live. I don't find a bit of fault with you. Just because I criticize, albeit harshly, NJ, doesn't mean I criticize you. I certainly do recognize that there are fine people living in NJ being held ransom by those who are out to destroy the state.
I think this debate can be settled by me saying that you have not only persuaded me to stay in NJ, but I am moving in with you!!!