Patriotism and Matty

Michigan Gov. Granholm, who is both a Canadian and an American citizen, has offered to sell the Michigan border to Canada. Meanwhile, the governor has consistently caused red tape from the state of Michigan to prohibit an American company – Detroit International Bridge Co. – from building a second span to replace its 80-year-old Ambassador Bridge. Instead, she wants to tear down hundreds of homes, businesses and churches in Southwest Detroit to obtain money from Canada.

— Dan Stamper, president of Detroit International Bridge Co., owner and operator of the Ambassador Bridge, which is really owned by Matty Moroun

By Joel Thurtell

To hear Matty Moroun tell it, he’s a poor, starving billionaire much-maligned in the press and beaten up by government officials premier among whom is the Canadian-born governor of Michigan whose patriotism must be questionable now that she’s lined up against the poor, starving billionaire.

Oh excuse me, Moroun didn’t say those things. That nonsense was uttered by Dan Stamper, president of Matty’s bridge monopoly.

Since Stamper does what Matty tells him to do, it’s fair to put Dan’s words in Matty’s mostly reticent mouth.

Patriotism was Matty’s theme, using the Stamper trumpet.

Nothing wrong with patriotism when it is an honest expression of love for one’s homeland. But in Matty’s hands, patriotism is a weapon in the rhetorical arsenal of the bridge monopolist intent on retaining his exclusive right to collect fares from trucks crossing between Canada and the U.S.

Matty’s patriotic petards belong to that definition of a patriot given by Dr. Samuel Johnson in the 18th century:

“The last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Does ownership of  the only bridge in town make Matty a patriot?

Does ownership of an unregulated monopoly over the passage of a quarter of the two countries’ Canada-U.S. freight make Matty, ipso facto, a patriot?

Is it an act of patriotism to sue every government that tries to enforce regulations, contracts or — and here’s the nut of it — build a bridge that would rival Matty’s decrepit 1920’s span?

The proposed new government bridge is the key to Matty’s patriotism.

Those of us who would remain patriots in Matty’s definition would mindlessly support the billionaire’s “right” to conduct business any way he chooses, to exclude government inspectors from his bridge, to steal land from the city of Detroit when he needs a site for a duty-free store, a gas station or even his cherished new bridge, which must stand on the site he stole from Detroit’s Riverside Park.

Dr. Johnson had more to say about “patriotism.” He had in mind the 18th-century English politician, Edmund Burke, when he made these remarks:

Sir, I do not say that he is not honest; but we have no reason to conclude from his political conduct that he is honest…In private life he is a very honest gentleman; but I will not allow him to be so in publick life. People may be honest, though they are doing wrong; that is between their Maker and them. But we, who are suffering by their pernicious conduct, are to destroy them. We are sure that [Burke] acts from interest. We know what his genuine principles were. They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction.

What Dr. Johnson said of Edmund Burke applies to Matty: We are sure that Moroun acts from interest.

His allegiance is to the almighty American greenback.

As for love of country, he waxes patriotic when it suits his aim — control of trucking fares on the Detroit River.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Is it patriotic to