By the Time I Get to Arizona

The battle royale over immigration and broadband reclassification share a common trait: very little recognition by the principal players that these are long-term national issues, not just political footballs that affect the obvious and the immediate.

Take the immigration issue. I used to live in Arizona. My husband and his family are all from Arizona. I have a lot of close friends in Arizona. And let’s just say that the state is not known for its melting-pot nature. Despite more of its land being given over to Native American reservations than anything else and a large percentage of its population being Hispanic, the different cultures that live in the place all kind of do their own thing. Call it self-segregation. Except when it comes to tamales. Everyone loves tamales. Especially around Christmastime.

Remember how Arizona didn’t want an MLK day? As a Zonie friend of mine explained to me at the time, perfectly without guile (and without accuracy): “Well, we just don’t really have Black people that live here. What’s the point?”

The state got a bad rap for being racist back then, but I would actually characterize it more as myopia, at the time. My friend and many like her didn’t get that it wasn’t about Arizona. It was about national identity. And the importance of participating in the national embrace of the legacy of the Civil Rights movement.

And it’s the same now with this latest culture clash. Think about all the various stakeholders along the border—Mexican federales, U.S. Border Patrol, business owners that thrive off of cheap illegal labor, citizens who resent their tax dollars paying for the health and education of those that don’t pay taxes, the media-happy Sheriff Joe Arpaio (a polarizing figure in his own right), drug lords and drug runners, farmers, “coyotes” that ferry the undocumented, the illegal immigrants themselves, human rights groups that set up water jugs in the arid, unforgiving, killer Sonoran Desert expanses that illegal immigrants must travel through ... the list goes on and on. But this isn’t just an issue for Arizona: What happens to our national approach to immigration will reshape our core national identity. And the issue deserves a large-ranging, clear discussion on the very real issues on either side of the debate. And sure, there’s a really polarizing law on the books, and people nationwide are diving in to get a political piece of the discussion. But the real issue isn’t just about the law in Arizona and whether or not the state is racist, or a fan of militaristic rule (in my opinion, it’s neither). It’s what it means for immigration reform, and the passing of that law should have led to the larger talk about a path to citizenship for those willing to work hard and pay taxes, about how to better collaborate with Mexico to stem drug violence and about homeland security and how to spend our resources.

I was thinking about this when I was reading that the FCC is reconsidering its tentative plan to reclassify broadband as a Title II service. In the wake of a court’s decision to allow Comcast to prioritize some traffic over other traffic in the name of network management and customer satisfaction, the FCC has been somewhat defanged as a consumer advocate. One possible recourse for the agency is to place broadband under the same classification as a traditional telecom service, over which it has a clear jurisdiction.

Rebecca Arbogast and David Kaut of Stifel Nicholas wrote in a report to investors that they don’t “think a final decision has yet been made” by the FCC to pursue the strategy. Largely because broadband service providers would obviously resist the extra layer of regulation, using political rhetoric and clout to do so. And, they noted, Republicans would find it a tasty tidbit to point to the evils of “large government,” arguing that it would cause a stalling of job creation and investment.

In other words, it might be too hard of a battle for the FCC to engage. So, for the moment, Comcast has won the day and those opposing the decision are ramping up the rhetoric and the he said-she said finger-pointing that goes along with hot button topics.

Arbogast and Kaut opined that reclassification wouldn’t have any sort of immediate effect. In fact, it’s a red herring. “We do not agree with those who have charged that there will necessarily be massive re-regulation of broadband under Title II, and that even if the FCC decides to forbear from imposing common carrier regulations it would take years to effectuate the relief. Rather, we believe the agency will try to reach the same end game it was pursuing before the recent FCC setback in the Comcast case.”

In other words, the larger discussion, i.e. how to look at broadband in the era of the initiative to bring it to everyone, Internet voice and more over-the-top competitors than you can shake a stick at, is getting subsumed under the smaller, but nastier, political fight. What exactly does being a phone company mean? And it’s also critical to clearly define the FCC’s role – is it an impartial agency? Does the political appointment of the Chairman negate its ability to adequately consider the issues?

And that lack of willingness to engage these issues, dear readers, is frankly a huge shame. Because these are questions whose answers affect all of us, not just the Comcast CIO who’s trying to figure out how to even out traffic consumption in the name of customer satisfaction. For most of us, the reality is, to quote Public Enemy, “By the Time I Get to Arizona:” Neither party is mine not the jackass or the elephant.

I’m not saying politics don’t matter, because they do. But rather than risk losing the more important discussion in these two arenas, sometimes you just have to be willing to rise above.