What is up with the U.S. Governors?

Now, governors, while generally thought of as statesmen, are of course primarily politicians. It isn't that they are primarily motivated by politics - the good ones aren't. It's that in order to productively effect change in American society as currently designed, politics, in one shape or form, is the best forum.

And to back up a second, "politics" isn't a bad word. There are two main classes of definitions for "politics" - one referring specifically to the act of governing/managing a nation or other governmentally-defined body and another that deals more with the derogatory notion that people are engaged in behavior that is not substantive but rather more along the lines of "social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power." People tend to collapse the two into one since often to engage in the former brand of politics, one is required to engage in the latter. It's the nature of our electoral system. But in no way does that mean that the former is actually just the latter. Trust me. People are actually doing real things to help people and our society and it does absolutely nothing for them. You won't hear about it a lot, because it doesn't fall in that second category and given that we all want the instant gratification of sensationalism, it just doesn't get coverage. But it's very very real.

Now given this, I've been deeply weirded out over the last few months or so by the bizarre behaviors of U.S. state governors. We'll start with Governor Rick Perry of Texas' recent suggestion that Texas might, again, secede from the Union. He claims not to have specifically said it would, but rather ominously in the midst of standard tax day protests: "Perry said he doesn't think Texas should secede from the union despite some talk about it on the Internet. But he said Americans are getting fed up with Washington and that it's unknown what that might lead to one day."

While I understand and actually respect the sentiment and moreover the lack of reverence for authority, it doesn't work that well when you ARE authority. It's fine if some bizarre anarchist covered with tea bags makes this sort of vague threat to the Union and Washington but really not cool when a governor does it. I understand it's posturing and all politics is local, but really, it's just hack work. Part of it is the impotence Perry must feel. And part of it has to do with the irresponsible behavior of the electorate. We really should not be electing these types of people to posts where they have massive power and influence. See, only a fifth of Texas voters would actually want to secede -and I can't imagine that's much higher than in other places. Again, it's posturing but the thing is, Washington doesn't need that much from the states. It doesn't really matter if Perry is upset or not. So it's really just a waste of the taxpayers' time.

See, e.g., the decision, well not decision but posturing, about not accepting federal stimulus funds. The problem here, again, is that if you're a radical with no one (or other radicals) to answer to, you can adhere to a strict belief system. In the real world, and particularly in the political world, and particularly in a diverse state, you are in the end beholden to your constituents. So Mark Sanford of South Carolina who went off about not taking stimulus funds, well, he's having to backtrack. Sanford's particular issue was that he wanted to use the stimulus funds not for education, but for paying off the state's debt. My guess is the people of South Carolina, on the whole, would like to see their schools fixed and some jobs immediately created in the process.

I won't bother going through all the republican governors who played this absurd game because it isn't worth my time to pull up all the articles b.c., big picture, all the stories are the same.

Of course, this is the primary pool from which we pull presidents. And I worry about these behaviors because it appears to show that they don't know when to knock it off with the second definition of politics and get back to the first one. I will grant that there are numerous arguments against the use of stimulus funds in specific circumstances but none of them hold water when you consider that economies go beyond an individual state. So if a neighboring state is getting this money and yours isn't, that isn't going to help you, regardless of how laudable your long-term financial and economic view was.

Saying the government shouldn't give out money by not personally accepting it isn't going to stop the government from giving out money. That's just not how it works.