Die Mad About It – Sam Briton edition

I’ve used the phrase “Die mad about it” before. At least one person commented that this seemed to go very much against my normal stance against violence & threats of violence. This surprised me at first, but turned out to be a misunderstanding.

“Die mad about it” doesn’t indicate any desire for a person’s untimely demise. What it means is that I take a perverse pleasure in thinking of the subject as holding onto this grudge, and nursing it throughout a long life. That they will cling to a belief that they will find some remedy for this perceived injustice, some restitution or vindication. And yet, the world moves on, completely unconcerned with their backwards views. Eventually, many decades later, on the subject’s deathbed, they are still mad about this situation, and how it was never resolved to their liking.

It is meant to display a casual contempt for an opinion that is utterly impotent in the modern day. That this concern is beneath consideration, and doesn’t deserve the dignity of even an acknowledgement. The subject doesn’t have any recourse to soothe their anger, they must simply nurse it for decades. (Or, admitedly, let it go)

I know it’s not virtuous of me to feel this way. It betrays a spite and schedenfreud that I believe a better version of myself should not have.

And yet… there are some arguments so unworthy of consideration, that I can’t even be bothered to engage them. They are plainly, obviously, and trivial wrong. I can only hope that a better person than me will come along and engage such people in a productive way. I am not that good.

Which is all to say — apparently there are some right-wingers bemoaning the fact that Sam Briton is now the “deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy.” Briton’s crime, which should make him unhirable as a dept asst sec of nuclear waste disposal? Did he defraud the public, bomb bridges, or punch a baby? Does he not know how atoms work? Nope — He just isn’t in the closet about being kinky.

For a bunch of people who get upset about stupid-ass cancellations, this is more than a bit hypocritical. I know they don’t care about hypocrisy though, not any more than the woke left does. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. Briton has the job, and no sane American is bothered about this. So fuck ’em. They can die made about it.