Contributors

Robert Everett Johnson is an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm based in Arlington, Virginia. His role as Elfie Gallun Fellow for Freedom and the Constitution involves a lot of writing and speaking about America's founding principles. "The Constitution is a thoroughly radical document," the 32-year-old Harvard Law graduate likes to say. "The 14th Amendment, the most important part of the whole document, was drafted by a group of abolitionists and anarchists who literally described themselves as 'Radical Republicans.'" Before joining the institute, Johnson clerked for both Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Nick Sibilla has been a writer at the Institute for Justice for almost four years. He resides in Northern Virginia ("Mordor," in his words), though he's lived off and on in the Washington, D.C., area for more than a decade—including during a stint as reason's Burton C. Gray memorial intern in 2012. When he's not working, he says, "I love going on art road trips, reading, gaming, cooking, and watching both critically acclaimed documentaries and so-bad-they're-good flicks." "Could the IRS Empty Your Bank Account?" (page 30) is a story of habitual theft by government that Sibilla, 26, wrote with Johnson.

Liberty Fund senior fellow (and self-identified "bleeding-heart libertarian") Sarah Skwire is also the poetry editor at The Freeman. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago and does research at the intersection of literature and economics, "with byways into popular culture and whatever else catches my attention." Attempting the unexpected, she lays out "the libertarian case for bodice rippers" beginning on page 54 ("You Should Read More Romance Novels"). Skwire, 45, unsurprisingly loves to read-"science fiction, fantasy, murder mysteries, and romance, of course," she says. "I'm too joyously omnivorous to pick a single favorite."