The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz begins with a quote from Thoreau that asks how citizens should react to unjust laws. The philosopher of Walden Pond asks whether we should simply obey them or try to change them, obeying them in the meantime.

Or, he concludes, “shall we transgress them at once?”

Thoreau makes it clear that he favors the latter approach, and the same could be said for the subject of Brian Knappenberger’s documentary, Aaron Swartz.

Before his suicide last year at the age of 26, Swartz was known as one of the computer age’s brightest whiz kids. His many accomplishments included playing central roles in the founding of Reddit, an online news site, and Creative Commons, an alternative to restrictive copyright laws.

Since his death, Swartz has been considered a martyr in the fight against those who seek to compromise Internet access for the sake of profit.

Iraq was saved from ignorant subhuman barbarism by a gentlewoman named Gertrude at the time that the civilized nations of the world were, in a quite advanced and sophisticated manner, slaughtering their young men in a project now called the First World War. 

Because the Arabs were too backward to be allowed to govern themselves, or even to contemplate creating a world war, and because tribes and ethnicities and religions never really garner much loyalty or support that can't be wiped away with a good cup of tea or a few clouds of poison gas, and because the French were too dumb to know where the oil was, it became necessary for the British to install an Iraqi leader who wasn't Iraqi, through a democratic election with one candidate running.