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Fortunately in the United States, the Social Contract happens to have a powerful written component, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These documents, while they are imperfectly written, imperfectly interpreted, and imperfectly enforced, provide a foundation that has survived 220 year thus far. Part of our duty as citizens is to see that these documents are properly enforced, not only for ourselves, but for others. To deny anyone their rights--without due process--is to one day ensure the eventual violation of one or more of your own rights.
For our society to grow and prosper (as a whole) is only possible when we show respect for our fellow citizens, their rights, their property, their dreams and their goals. This includes permitting our fellow citizens wide latitude when they exercise their rights, limited only by not causing harm to others directly or indirectly.
You have--under the Constitution--a long litany of positive rights as a citizen: freedom of expression; freedom of conscience; freedom of association; the right to petition the government; the right to bear arms; the right to privacy; the right to equal protection and due process under the law; the right to vote regardless of race, creed, color, sex or national origin without having to pay for that right, in so long as you are over the age of eighteen, and your right has not been limited through due process. You even have rights that are not explicitly written in the Constitution, but "are retained by the people,"- because the Framers knew that the world changes and they could not imagine what the citizens of our Republic might require in the future.
But all of these rights incur a tremendous responsibility with them: not only to ourselves and our families, but to our communities, our states, and our Nation as well. We have a responsibility to show respect for the rights and the needs of our fellow citizens, as they have a responsibility to show respect to us. We have forgotten the lesson of the Great Depression and the Second World War: we have always triumphed when we think of ourselves as Americans first.
