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Disproportionately who is more often the target of the firearms globally as well as domestically? Who do we think of when we think of the “armed citizen” that the NRA has been celebrating for approximately a century? Who are those heroic armed citizens that we picture when we imagine the good citizenship of self-care that involves firearms? We are literally killing ourselves in this nation because of our love affair with these firearms and the mythology that they're going to make us safer.

Caroline Light joins us to discuss her book, Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense. A 10th anniversary edition with a new introduction and a preface by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is now available from Beacon Press. 

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Posted by Matthew Boedy

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

Who put the pube in Reince Pubis? Who put the baa in Barr, the fly in Flynn, the rump in Trump? Who put the scales on Scalia? Who put the pomp in Pompeo?

Pompeo, Pompeo, Secretary of State, the pompous, pumped-up Pompeo. Pompeo distinguished himself at West Point, by graduating first in his class. That is, he distinguished himself by leaving. They were so excited about him leaving that they made him go first. He was not the cutest, nicest girl at school. Although, hefty comedian Jeff Garlin famously had a routine where he contrasted his physical form with the words “I’m a pretty little girl.” “I’m a big fat man,” he would say, and then, “I’m a pretty little girl.” And how the audience would howl in amusement.

Pompeo, pompous, pumped-up. From the French, pompier, fireman. The French find firemen funny. I don’t know why. I think there’s a rumor that all firemen are stupid. The Parisian fire department is a branch of the armed forces. Pompeo is a branch of the armed forces unto himself. Who put the pump in Pompeo, inserted it in his puckered purple portal and puffed him up to such pompous proportions? Probably some pompier.

Pompeo. Pompeo indeed. As noted above, he is not undistinguished. He’s an accomplished scholar and former athlete. Like Bob Barr, the Attorney General, Pompeo had an impeccable record, when viewed from afar. Both Barr and Pompeo are tools of Jesus the Conqueror, Jesus the Dictator, Jesus the One Who Graces the Mighty Chosen with the Divine Right of Kings. Y’know, the evil Jesus. The asshole Jesus. The Jesus who wants the US to inflict upon its foreign prisoners waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, rape, threats to their families, electrocution, and of course, rectal feeding. Rectal feeding, it also turns out, is exactly the way they pump the pomp into Pompeo. One day Pompeo might pop, from all the pomp pumped into him.

Pompeo opposes abortion even in cases of rape. He opposes gay marriage, and any rights protecting gay and trans persons from discrimination. He, of course, opposes the closing of the prison at Guantanamo, because it’s such an idyllic paradise for rectal feedings. Just imagine him, sitting on the veranda overlooking the Bay, enjoying a rectal feeding as the sun sinks below the horizon.

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