You have surrendered your natural right to steal or to commit murder--rights that you would possess devoid of a system of governance. These liberties you and others have sacrificed are exchanged for common security and self-preservation. Whether or not your rights are limited to protect other people's rights (or for some other purpose) is irrelevant. You are forced to abide by these restrictions because of the social contract between yourself and the government which creates and enforces these laws.
> You have surrendered your natural right to steal or to commit murder--rights that you would possess devoid of a system of governance.
You don't possess the right to steal or murder, regardless of the existence or lack of a government.
> These liberties you and others have sacrificed are exchanged for common security and self-preservation.
I didn't "sacrifice" my "right" to murder someone because I never had such a right.
> You are forced to abide by these restrictions because of the social contract between yourself and the government which creates and enforces these laws.
People aren't forced to abide by these restrictions, they are punished for violating them. And they are punished because law enforcement has an interest in enforcing them, not because of any social fiction.
> You don't possess the right to steal or murder, regardless of the existence or lack of a government.
You absolutely do, because nothing is preventing you from doing so. Maybe you are referring to a moral right? We are discussing legal rights. These don't exist without a system of governance.
> I didn't "sacrifice" my "right" to murder someone because I never had such a right.
Absent of any political order, who is to say what rights you have or don't have? This is the entire point of government and the social contract. It is a universal and mutually agreed on pact, which takes the form of an exchange of certain individual rights for protection of other rights, that critically, everyone must abide by and that maximize the well-being and security of everyone. It formalizes which universal rights exist and also what limitations exist. This system is what dictates your rights.
> You are forced to abide by these restrictions because of the social contract between yourself and the government which creates and enforces these laws.
I'm not really sure how to respond to this. No, governments do not literally / physically force you to stop speaking in the case of your freedom of speech. Being "forced to" in this context would mean being compelled to abide by the laws of society. This relationship defines the social contract that you, and everyone else in society, has entered into with the ruling authority/government.
> You absolutely do, because nothing is preventing you from doing so.
Lack of obstruction is not the same as a right.
> Maybe you are referring to a moral right? We are discussing legal rights. These don't exist without a system of governance.
You're contradicting yourself. First you say I possess a right to murder and steal in the absence of a government. Then you say rights don't exist without a system of governance.
> Absent of any political order, who is to say what rights you have or don't have?
Thats an excellent question. Rights are a social construct that emerges on the basis of mutual cooperation and are continued through intentional participation. "who is to say" arises in the event of a dispute between rights-holders. This dispute can be resolved violently or by agreement. At one time, the disputants would take their dispute to an agreed-upon person who was acceptable to both and had a reputation for fair-decision-making. This created case law and is why, many times, the answer to "who is to say" is "precedent." Social order created this system and social order is sustained by it.
> This is the entire point of government and the social contract. It is a universal and mutually agreed on pact, which takes the form of an exchange of certain individual rights for protection of other rights, that critically, everyone must abide by and that maximize the well-being and security of everyone. It formalizes which universal rights exist and also what limitations exist. This system is what dictates your rights.
This is a series of popular misconceptions. Firstly the point of government differs according to who you ask. The social contract is a social myth that analogizes the process of government with an actual agreement as a way of sidestepping the uncomfortable fact that the hegemony of government is neither universal nor mutually agreed-upon. Thirdly, there is no right to commit murder (this would be a contradiction in terms) so there's not a way for me to exchange such a right for the benefit of murders being performed on my behalf. It is clear that well-being a security of everyone is not maximized by every government, so its equally possible that the purpose of government is something else, and government merely claims to maximize the well-being and security of everyone in order to do that something else, and tribalism (among other things) allows the various different governments to divide and conquer while the conquered are fraudulently persuaded that this is in their best interest and something they have agreed to anyway. Finally if government dictated the rights then there would be no logical way to criticize whichever incarnation of rights the government (in their wisdom and beneficence) deemed it appropriate to dictate. Such criticism is ubiquitous and demonstrates that while government may prohibit violations of and enforce upon a community a given concept of rights, the government is not the origin of those rights or that concept.
> Being "forced to" in this context would mean being compelled to abide by the laws of society.
People are not compelled to abide by the laws of society, they violate them every day. In fact violations are so numerous that there are millions of professionals whose sole occupation is to locate these violations, apprehend the perpetrators, and deal with them and their actions in a socially harmonious manner.
> This relationship defines the social contract that you, and everyone else in society, has entered into with the ruling authority/government.
Since we can agree that people are not compelled to obey the government, but choose to obey or suffer the consequences; can we also agree that the social contract is a mythos that relates the process of governance to an actual contract by way of analogy?
Who has a right to steal or murder? Those are by definition violations of other people's rights.