Aaron Swartz

Social Security got passed because John D. Rockefeller was sick of having to take money out of his profits to pay for his workers' pension funds. Why do that, when you can just let the government take money from the workers?

Many of Judy Blume's books - which I devoured when I was growing up and where I found characters that were believable because they were a lot like me - caused considerable consternation when they were first published, but now they're widely accepted as an essential part of the children's literary canon.