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Humans need rules and standards and society is good because groups are more secure than individuals left to their own devices.

The Social Contract is an implicit agreement (as in not explicitly consented to) between everyone in a given society. Yup, even babies.

The Social Contract is based on the conclusion that a society governed by law requires the sacrifice of its individual members' rights to remain secure.

Contracts bind people to obligations and open ‘contracts’, like the social one, that don’t exist in fact, are the kinds of elastic things the political class loves to exploit. Especially when the terms of the contract pit rights against security.

Rights are a two-way street of freedoms and restraints. They are claims to freedom from force that you must also recognize in others. So it’s not just the other fella who has to leave you alone. You have to leave him alone too.

America’s actual contracts, the Declaration and the Constitution, forbid the sacrifice of rights to any cause and are premised on the understanding that rights are the SOURCE of security, not the saboteur.

So when someone says you’re obligated to do something because of the Social Contract, ask them where that contract is. And when they can’t produce it, show them the two ACTUAL contracts you DO follow and urge them to do the same.