A petard was an early gunpowder weapon, usually an iron cooking pot filled with black power, that was manually placed against a wall or gate in order to blow a hole in the obstacle. Today, we would call it a breaching charge.
Given the inconstancies of pre-industrial gunpowder and fuses, placing and lighting a petard was a risky business for the combat engineers of the era. Many times, they found themselves “hoisted” into the air and eternity by a prematurely detonating petard. That is why the phrase, “Hoisted by one’s own petard,” entered the language to mean being undone by one’s own weapon or actions.
This is why I find it incredibly funny that the current leftwing hero du jour has been arrested for violating a ridiculously broad definition of rape that rabidly misandrogynistic leftists foisted upon Sweden.
I mean it is seriously funny. I don’t even think there is an Internet acronym to express how karmically hilarious I find this situation.
Why can’t leftists understand that the violence-based power of the state is a blunt and dangerous instrument? Leftists always seek to invest power in the state in order to dominate and control their self-perceived cultural, social and political competitors. Why do they never learn that eventually that power will be turned against leftists themselves?