Warning signs of a child predator, Brett Kimberlin edition

In August 2014, one of Brett Kimberlin's frivolous lawsuits, Kimberlin v. Walker et al, went to trial. You may already know that Brett has filed a great number of frivolous lawsuits, but this one was special in that it made it all the way to a judge and jury in a trial hearing. Very often, Brett's frivolous cases are ended before they can make it that far; indeed, even in this trial case, most of the false and frivolous claims by Brett had already been dismissed. What the defendants had left, amounted to a trial about defamation. Among other examples, Brett complained that the defendants had called him a pedophile, as in fact at least two of them certainly have. Two of them even repeatedly referred to Brett Kimberlin as a pedophile while on the stand, being asked to explain themselves.

They won. And the case turned not on some procedural error as Brett's cases often do, but it was decided on the matter of truth.

Of course, normally one can use much more mundane methods to detect a pedophile. There is often a telltale warning sign. In Brett's case, there were multiple - both before, and since, he had his drug smuggling colleague Bowman murder Julia Scyphers in retaliation for interfering with his pedophilia.

Warning sign: Pedophiles skate near the boundaries

Pedophiles certainly do not spend 100% of their time inappropriately touching their targets. And it's not actually all that common for third party observers to catch them in the act. They DO, however, spend much of their time with children doing things that push boundaries of appropriate behavior. They seek out scenarios that might give them an opportunity or excuse for inappropriate touching. They also subtly (or not-so-subtly) seek to create situations where a discussion about sex or genitals might arise.

Brett Kimberlin, by his own admission, made a habit of being nude while around the young Barton girls. When his alarmed biographer asked about it, Brett tried to pass it off as some sort of casual non conformist nudist taste he just happened to have, but you must realize this is a clear warning sign of pedophilia. There are several advantages the pedophile Brett Kimberlin would gain from his tactic of being nude around the young girls. One is to wear down the natural alarm and discomfort most middle school aged children would feel if one of their parent's friends exposed his genitals to them. Pedophiles sometimes seek to make a normally alarming situation into something routine. It lowers the defenses of the kids, and if other adults are not looking at warning signs, it even offers pretexts in case the pedophile is spotted crossing even more lines.

It's important to understand that pedophiles escalate these situations into actual acts of pedophilia. For instance, once a pedophile has made it "normal" to expose his genitals to children, he can escalate to talking about genitals or touching genitals. He will monitor the reaction of the target to each step to try to make sure he gets away with each escalation without raising an alarm.

This warning sign can often help put the pedophile in very stark contrast against normal, "safe" adults. Of course, the normal adult consciously tries to avoid these boundaries in the first place. Moreover, if you asked the normal adult to step further away from a boundary, he would not only comply, but he would be careful to avoid any similar misunderstanding in the future. Normal "safe" adults are totally satisfied with the explanation that "I'm not comfortable" with it.

In summary, Brett Kimberlin didn't just happen to discover nudism at the same time he was lounging around the house with two elementary school aged girls. The "nudism" was an excuse to expose himself to the girls. And he would have been trying to tune into their reactions to judge how to make his next move.

Warning sign: Pedophiles seek highly off-kilter personal interactions

It's wrong and regrettable that some parents, out of irrationally inflated fear of pedophiles, prevent beneficial contact between children and adults. People who promote unthinking hysteria about pedophilia are helping deny kids opportunities to grow and develop socially as well as skipping opportunities for mentoring, friendship, etc. Discerning parents will realize the overwhelming majority of adults would never sexually abuse a child, and instead parents should learn how to identify and stop the few who do.

Brett Kimberlin, who was in his 20s at the time, let slip the moniker "girlfriend" when speaking to his associates about the object of his pedophilia. Normal "safe" men simply do not woo elementary school children at all. Additionally, Brett admitted to his target's mother that Brett intended to marry the girl when she got older.

Brett also had a habit of spending extensive alone time with the target of his pedophilia. When she was 10, 11, and 12, he took her away on unchaperoned week long out of town vacations.

Brett's emotional interactions with the girl were often well beyond highly suspicious. Around the time she started refusing to spend time with him, Brett "disciplined" his target by slapping her and taking away her puppy. This is already so far outside the behavior of normal, safe adults that it requires little further comment.

Similarly, when denied the ability to see the girl, Brett threatened suicide. He raged against the girl's grandmother who was protecting her and tried (but failed) to retaliate by making false complaints to an apartment management office.

Weeks later, that grandmother was shot to death by one of Brett Kimberlin's close colleagues.

Major warning signs were there. It's quite a confluence of behavior that can't be explained innocently. One of the worst things about this story is that Brett Kimberlin went on to re-offend, which will be the subject of a later post.

What can you do about it? Well, Brett Kimberlin will have a hard time offending again if everyone is forewarned, so I encourage you to share this information about him and take a good, hard look at any and all of his behavior toward minors.

Thought for the day

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

- Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Should drugs be legal?

This informal, unsourced discussion of drug policy is intended to put Brett Kimberlin's lifelong crime spree in the proper perspective. My chief goal is to aid readers in realizing how the justice system should better deal with criminals like Brett Kimberlin, but as side effects, I will talk about many arguments that are posed about whether drugs should be illegal.

To lock up ones neighbors and fellow citizens for drug use is immoral

I personally disapprove of the use of recreational and illegal drugs. But if I had the chance, I  would never vote in favor of locking up my neighbors and fellow citizens who use them. I have peaceful tools of persuasion I can use, and that is my proper and just recourse to carry out my disagreement over whether to use drugs. Sending the courts and police after people who aren't persuaded is heavy handed and immoral. The proper use of court and police power is to resolve disputes and to force bad actors to atone to their victims. Forcefully attacking drug users achieves none of these proper uses, and in fact, it undermines them.

Drug use is not a dire emergency that justifies severe reactions

Some people see my point in the prior paragraph but argue that the consequences of drug use are so dire and awful that extreme, forceful responses must be accepted. The premise is false.

Most users are not addicts

As I said earlier, I don't approve of drug use, but a great majority of people using illegal and "hard" drugs - ranging from marijuana to cocaine to heroin - are not habitual addicts. They are mainly otherwise normal members of society, who mainly obey laws, work for a living, but happen to do things in their spare time I disapprove of. Even those who do form habits normally manage to drop them after some years. Heroin is presented as the scariest, hardest drug. But if you want to know what most heroin use is like, it's actually very similar to alcohol use. A majority of heroin users are occasional users. Some addicts are still functioning acceptably in most areas of life; some other addicts allow their lives to be ruined. Most addicts eventually come to completely drop the drug after some years of their own volition. Some people are on again, off again. The patterns are very similar whether one talks of alcohol, cigarettes, and yes, "scary" heroin or cocaine. Heroin addiction, while serious, does not warrant a massive wholesale inversion of the whole legal system any more than alcohol or cigarette addiction does.

Prohibition makes problems worse rather than better

The "dire emergency" argument is in no way helped by the fact that prohibition tends to make consequences to users WORSE. When the US federal government prohibited alcohol in the 1920s and early 1930s, the business was taken away from reputable, accountable tradesmen, and handed over to criminal gangs such as the mafia, and to fly-by-night scofflaws. One result was several incidents in which the delivery of impure, poisoned product injured or killed tens of thousands of customers. Prohibition curtails or outright denies the use of the justice system to people harmed this way, so, prohibition means that dangerous products, cheating, lying, stealing, and thuggery are no longer deterred in the industry like they would be if the industry were legal. Prohibition not only doesn't protect users from the potential problems of their drugs; it shepherds them in to business with criminals who might expose the users to dangers without the deterrent consequences that would be present if the drug were legal.

I readily acknowledge that the problems of drug addiction can be painful and heart-wrenching.  Solutions are hard to come by. But those claiming to offer prohibition as the solution are selling snake oil.

Addiction connected troubles are not unique enough to warrant uniquely harsh recourse

It's often pointed out that a drug addict often harms people around him. For private matters, the proper response to this is to withdraw (whether partially or fully) from voluntary relationships with the addict in response to his misdeeds. Or, if an addict lies to you or steals from you, your reaction should be basically similar to if a non-addict lied or stole. Apply this logic to any other failing that an addict might experience - all these failings also happen on the part of non addicts and to the extent that the recourse might involve the legal system, the recourse should generally be similar. Handing over an entire industry to criminal gangs is a ridiculous recourse to take.

Prohibition has terrible consequences for people who don't buy, sell, or use drugs

 

Crime and corruption increase due to prohibition

When alcohol was prohibited in the US in the early 20th century, the result was a huge growth in organized crime activity. Over a period of little more than a decade, the murder rate rose by a factor of about three. A much higher percentage of law enforcement officials were corrupted by payments from criminals in the illegal alcohol trade. Meanwhile law enforcement deviated from its productive goal of helping people, and instead wasted more resources on a battle against something people have a perfect right to consume. Resources were also strained by the rise in crime that was a consequence of prohibition. Also note that drug traffickers and retailers often compete with each other not by running more efficient businesses, but by engaging in outright violence. Prohibition is a terrible policy because it rewards the business that is better at violence and corruption, instead of rewarding the business that is most efficient at peaceful use of legitimately acquired resources.

When federal prohibition ended, the US murder rate began a major, nearly continuous decline that lasted for decades. A later long term spike in the murder rate followed beginning in the 1960s and 70s, which suspiciously coincides with a greatly increased law enforcement focus on illegal drugs.

Making drugs illegal hands the trade to criminals, who behave much worse than legitimate businesses

Illegal drug traffickers specialize in violence, threats, fostering and recruiting street gangs, corrupting officials, etc. This is in stark contrast to above-board, legal businesses. If you want to reduce violence, threats, street gangs, or corruption, you want to hand the drug trade back over to legitimate businesses. Legalize it. Completely.

Major Conclusion: drug prohibition concentrates more power and influence in the hands of criminals

If you have no desire to ever use drugs, you should still want them to be legal. That's because prohibition hands the trade over to criminals. It leads to the criminals having more revenue, more influence, more public support, and more opportunity to corrupt the justice system. If you aren't swayed by the drug war's negative effects on small time end users of drugs, you ought to be totally outraged by the drug war's effect on overall criminality, which affects everyone. Including people who personally have nothing to do with drugs or the drug trade. High crime rates, bigger and richer mafias, full jails, and corrupted officials are inevitable and universal costs of prohibition.

What does all this have to do with Brett Kimberlin?

As I said above, drug prohibition takes business away from the peaceful law-abiding population and hands the business over to lying, cheating, violent, disreputable bad actors - such as Brett Kimberlin. Brett cultivated bad, undesirable, dishonest "anti-skills" in his criminal career, including: forgery, perjury, and impersonating federal security personnel. Because of the folly of prohibition, these bad behaviors were HUGELY renumerative to Kimberlin. By age 24, Kimberlin's drug income had bought him his 300 acre property with a big custom 4000 square foot dream home, with a late model Mercedes. He took expensive vacations and romanced girls (in his case, an underage elementary school girl) with his horses, pool, and expensive vacations. He apparently also bought huge amounts of silver, and spent a fortune on a high power expensive Texas drug defense lawyer, along with other lawyers for his other crimes. These expenditures were all funded with drug money. Prohibition was part of the problem here. The prohibition-created underground crime world of the drug trade was like a playground for Brett.

It is also worth noting that the seedy nature of the illegal drug business attracted William Bowman, who helped Brett by doing his dirty work of shooting Julia Scyphers. Such thuggery is no asset in the legitimate business sector, but it is perhaps an asset in the seedy underground criminal scene that surrounded Brett Kimberlin.

Conclusion: drugs should be legal in order to prevent power from concentrating in the hands of violent, dishonest scofflaws like Brett Kimberlin.