[1][2] Prior to becoming an academic historian, Gregory published hundreds of essays during his tenure as a research fellow at the Independent Institute, a libertarian think tank in the United States.
His father was an anti-war conservative who voted for George McGovern instead of Richard Nixon because of the latter's support for the Vietnam War; his mother was an anti-Communist immigrant from Korea.
Gregory says he became an anarchist in college, after seeing what he considered to be government bungling of its key function of national security during and after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
[1] In an interview, Gregory identified prisons as an important political issue that libertarians at large have tended not to care about as much as he thinks they should.
"[21] Lauer notes that the book questions the ability of any purely legal reform to curb worrisome developments of the modern surveillance state.