"Halfway Across, The Scorpion Stung Him"

      Republican mega-donor Peter Thiel will be sitting out the 2024 campaign, checkbook firmly shut.  The man who told us in 2009, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” has had his fill of the GOP's focus on culture wars while largely ignoring economic issues.

      Thiel happens to be gay as well as rich, and it's not a huge step to wonder if he's thinking the second is becoming increasingly poor armor for the first with a party that's gone all in on not merely encouraging cultural conservatism but hardwiring it into law.  Today it's outlawing abortions and drag shows, tomorrow...maybe Mr. Thiel's marriage?  (I don't know, maybe he's got a pal touring with Charley's Aunt in the title role and doesn't want him languishing in a Bible Belt jail.  Whatever.)

      Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "...the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."  I'd like to think he was right, but human history suggests to me that the arc doesn't move all by itself -- and humans have long been willing to turn a blind eye to violence and injustice if it's not happening to anyone too much like themselves.

      If you want to be treated fairly, you've got to treat others fairly first.  And you ought not ferry too many scorpions across the the river, confident that because the scorpion logically doesn't want to drown, you'll never be stung -- hey, Mr, Thiel?  Let us all drink to character!  (Follow the "stung" link.)