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A Social Contract is an agreement among people, though it’s not necessarily formal (and may even be hypothetical, reached through a sort of consensus).

You're claiming I'm a party to a contract that I never agreed to, that you can't even state with any certain detail, that provides no clear enumeration of responsibilities nor specific provision of penalties for breach... in other words, a "social contract" is nothing like a "contract". If you beleive that society around me has some prior claim over me, then go ahead and say so--but don't bastardize the language itself by calling it a "contract". The term was coined to give an air of legitimacy to a dubious concept.

Your quote from Blacks was apropos. The very notion of a "social contract" is founded on Hobbes's deeply flawed idea that humanity in its natural state is a violent struggle of all against all, and that some smart people invented government to restrain man's natural impulses. The idea is self-contradictory; he asserts first that man is essentially a predator incapable of making agreements in good faith, and then he supposes that these humans somehow did that of which they are incapable. It is further flawed by the obvious fact that nature contradicts his silly theory: even chimpanzees manage to exist without endless conflict of all against all--it is essentially not debatable that a group structure of tribes, or prides, or families, existed among our ancestors prior to the emergence of the great apes, let alone homo erectus, let alone homo sapiens.

Viewed in that light, you're postulating a contract that was originally entered into, on my behalf, by creatures lacking even rudimentary sentience. Apparently man's "natural state", according to Hobbes, was never actually found in nature.

...which brings us back to this term "social contract." You use it specifically to imply that I'm a welsher if I reject some aspect of this "contract" I'm supposedly party to. It won't work.

You're claiming I'm a party to a contract that I never agreed to

You belly up to the buffet and eat the lunch, you're obligated to pay the bill.

TANSTAAFL

"You use it specifically to imply that I'm a welsher if I reject some aspect of this "contract" I'm supposedly party to."

What we've got here is a failure to communicate. I did not mean to nor do I see where I implied anything about being a welsher.

I clearly stated "...you can always ignore it and be an outlaw."

And if you know enough to talk about Hobbes and Social Contract Theory the way you did you know enough to not state '...the other party to this "social contract" is presumably government.' But for some reason you stated it anyway.

But it doesn't matter. I'm done with this for the day at least.

You're claiming I'm a party to a contract that I never agreed to, that you can't even state with any certain detail, that provides no clear enumeration of responsibilities nor specific provision of penalties for breach... in other words, a "social contract" is nothing like a "contract".

If you believe that society around me has some prior claim over me, then go ahead and say so--but don't bastardize the language itself by calling it a "contract".

The term was coined to give an air of legitimacy to a dubious concept.

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Can you agree with the concept that our US Constitution is a 'social contract' worth honoring?

Here's and essay on the subject well worth reading:

The Social Contract and Constitutional Republics
Address:http://www.constitution.org/soclcont.htm

"--- Under the theory of the social contract, those rights which the individual brings with him upon entering the social contract are natural, and those which arise out of the social contract are contractual.

Those contractual rights arising out of the constitution are constitutional rights. However, natural rights are also constitutional rights.

The fundamental natural rights are life, liberty, and property. However, it is necessary to be somewhat more specific as to what these rights include. Therefore, constitution framers usually expand them into such rights as the right of speech and publication, the right to assemble peaceably, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to travel over public roadways, and so forth.

The exercise of such natural rights may be restricted to the extent that they come into conflict with the exercise of the natural rights of other members of society, but only to the minimum degree needed to resolve such conflict.

Such natural rights are inalienable, meaning that a person cannot delegate them or give them away, even if he wants to do so.
That means that no constitutional provision which delegated to government at any level the power to take away such rights would be valid, even if adopted as an amendment through a proper amendment process.

Such rights apply to all levels of government, federal, state, or local.
Their enumeration in the constitution does not establish them, it only recognizes them.

Although they are restrictions on the power of government, the repeal of the provisions recognizing them would not remove the restrictions or allow the delegation of any power to deny them.
The people do not have that power, and therefore cannot delegate it to government. --"