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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34982 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Sam Brinton is in the news this week.

For those who don't know, Sam is the first non-binary, gay drag queen to hold a federal government leadership position. I know him for his distinctive appearance, with moustache, bald head, and typical cross-dressing clothing and makeup. Here's another piece about him, from several months ago. The culture war angle should be obvious, as this man was highlighted, along with Rachael Levine, as examples of progressive hiring in the Biden administration. Suffice to say that he is not the kind of person I can take seriously, and I do not think he should have been hired, and certainly shouldn't have been celebrated. But that's not why I'm posting.

Now, why was he in the news this week?

Brinton was caught stealing luggage from an airport terminal. I'll notice that this article has no pictures of him. A summary, from here:

On Sept. 16, a female traveler alerted the Airport Police Department at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport that she was missing a piece of luggage.

Law enforcement officers who reviewed surveillance footage that same day saw Brinton remove a navy blue, hard-sided, 26-inch roller bag made by Vera Bradley from Carousel 7, according to the criminal complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court.

The victim confirmed, through a digital still of surveillance footage, that it was her bag with total contents worth $2,325, according to the complaint.

The same style of Vera Bradley luggage sells for $295 from VeraBradley.com.

Law enforcement confirmed that Brinton arrived at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport at 4:27 p.m. Sept. 16 on a flight from Washington, D.C., and had not checked a bag when he departed Washington.

Law enforcement learned that Brinton stayed at the InterContinental Saint Paul Riverfront hotel, and video surveillance from that hotel showed Brinton checking in with a bag that fit the description of the stolen luggage.

So he's been put on leave, for now, and he's due in court on the 19th of this month. At first, I wouldn't have considered posting this, as I simply found it funny in an absurd way, but then I ran across what is really the reason why I posted. I ran across a thread on twitter explaining why this was actually serious, and reflected a dangerous escalation of perverse behavior. I'll quote the main points:

The public needs to understand that this sexual deviant did NOT accidentally pick up the wrong suitcase, as he checked no bags on the flight. This was likely a targeted attempt at gaining access to a woman's underwear. This is what the Biden Admin desperately wants to keep quiet.

With nearly 13K clinical contact hrs, over 14+ years, working in a clinical capacity with men who sexually offend... with men who've done very deviant and heinous things to women and children... I can assure you that, once you see a man steal female items, it's really serious.

Go ahead and read the whole thread.

I hadn't considered this angle, at first, but once it's been pointed out to me, I can't shake it. It's the most plausible argument I've heard of for why Sam would steal the woman's luggage, given that all others make no sense.

So, to wrap up, my questions. First, should he be fired for stealing? Second, how likely is it that Sam stole the luggage specifically for underwear? And third, does this move the needle for you in any way, when considering whether to trust, hire, or promote people like Sam?

There's a level of theft that I think is immediately disqualifying from this level of a federal job, but I'm skeptical this is it. From a quick look at MN state law, this is technically chargeable as a felony, but it's an incredibly bad fit for it and really should get plead down just because the value estimates are going to be janky.

Lying to investigators is the more serious problem. I'm not a fan of the increasing drive to treat every lie to investigators as a chargeable offense itself, but even the lower levels of security investigation are specifically looking for evidence of past dishonesty, and while this probably reflects overclassification, a lot of nuclear reprocessing stuff is classified. Maybe could see some excuse if a work and travel was going to leave them that sleep-deprived, and the law enforcement questioning was done so soon after that they were still sleep-deprived, but I'm not buying it. There's always some room for 'interpretation' on the edges, and I'd expect the Biden admin is going to be willing to put some thumbs on the scales for that evaluation, though.

I'm... skeptical about the fetishist arguments. It'd be a hilarious excuse explanation for the awful fashion sense, but gay lingerie fetishism -- even the sort that emphasizes taking -- doesn't really work like that, and the twitter thread is about as far from a dispassionate analysis as possible (eg, the guy's bio links to a 'task force' news page with shocked headers about a Canadian PM's appearance on Ru Paul; his twitter proper is filled with Chinese Cardiology and bad grammar) short of trying to get NPR's take on things. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for this argument and act as if the twitterer's being somewhat near honest, but finding out that 100% of severe sexual offenders who steal panties are severe sexual offenders doesn't tell you much about the more general population, as distasteful and creepy as it still is for 'mere' anime-level hijinks. That doesn't make some deeper and vile motivation impossible, but I think there are other more plausible explanations.

At the most obvious level, Brinton's public personae can be paraphrased as 'homophobic conversion camp torture made me quirky.' And there's people who can pull that off, and sometimes it's a more appropriate way to handle trauma. But like a lot of approaches that center abuse, it can also turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, not just in finding homophobia everywhere, but also where the weird behaviors start being done for their own sake, and become increasingly unmoored from the merely strange. You see it more often with people who hid food or money in a very poor home and then turn to kleptomania in an adulthood that's no longer facing the same pressures, but there's both kink and non-kink variants in broader spheres.

There's a level of theft that I think is immediately disqualifying from this level of a federal job, but I'm skeptical this is it. From a quick look at MN state law, this is technically chargeable as a felony, but it's an incredibly bad fit for it and really should get plead down just because the value estimates are going to be janky.

What? This is clearly insane behavior.

Stealing a bag an easily identifiable bag at a place with hundreds of cameras is objectively insane. If you said perhaps they should be sent to a 12 month rehab instead of prison, perhaps. But left in an important federal job? You might as well appoint Bubbie to the fentanyl taskforce.

At the most obvious level...

No. The most obvious level is that we are dealing with a kleptomaniac or a compulsive fetishist. Neither is suited for a job other of a higher level than shelf stocker because of the compulsion.

I don't think that's a norm that we established very widely. There's individual jobs you can lose for an individual thefts on this scale (or even more severe crimes like DUIs), but they're things like 'police chief'. I expect that's why you're moving to the psychological profile, but in addition to the limitations and risks of remote psychological diagnosis, the above poster's specific question was "First, should he be fired for stealing?"

((That said, I also think the position is a benchwarmer's benchwarmer's job; anyone following nuclear science knows nothing's going to actually happen when it comes to nuclear waste policy. So I may be evaluating it differently.))

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