[A.J.Armitage]

The moment we accept that the government should exist to protect individual rights, we have accepted in principle the entire lumbering apparatus of modern government: taxes, regulations, foreign wars, you name it, as part of an amorphous "social contract".

I'm a minarchist and I don't believe in any kind of social contract.

[annalex]

I don't believe in any kind of social contract.

Of course you do. If you believe in government with consent of the governed then that is a social contract that you believe in. Then, as Who_would_fardels_bear correctly observes in #56,

If huge sections of the citizenry behave irresponsibly, then they can either choose to vote themselves into a socialist state or they can impoverish themselves so that they beg for a savior to help them out of their mess.

In other words, while freedom is necessary condition of virtue, it is not a sufficient condition. A free nation that loses its virtue will freely enslave itself.

[Pistias]

I don't believe in any kind of social contract.

That's a bold statement, A.J. What's the difference between minarchy and anarchy?