In 8th grade I learned about the Social Contract, which was written in the mid 1700's by someone French and which was not actually a contract, but was credited with being the first clearly articulated theory about what makes people give money to the government without the government having to use a knife.  Because I was in the 8th grade, I was more concerned about making fun of my teacher who had a lisp, but I remember him saying the Social Contract maintained order, and that it was, along with running water, the foundation of civilized society.  

As I remember them today, the basic tenets of the Contract were that if you, the citizen, stopped doing whatever you wanted and gave roughly 30% of your money to the Government, the Government would personally guarantee that all bridges would, not immediately, but eventually, be named after Senators.     

A big part of our class discussion focused upon the notion that buying into an organized nation-state scheme necessarily means dispensing with a portion of one's liberty.  At the time, I recall certain of my classmates thinking this was a lousy deal, including Jeff, who aggressively advocated anarchy to the class, about which he was expert, owing to the fact that he had been personally told about it by his older brother, who smoked cigarettes.

In the same series of classes we learned a lot about John Locke, who was central to the effort to develop democracy, but who is best remembered as having white hair.  We didn't talk about this at the time, but I am certain Locke would be more popular if not for Andrew Jackson's successful appeal to history for the right to be regarded as having the greatest shock of white hair ever.  Locke's dream was for “government with the consent of the governed” which doesn't sound like much of a radical idea today, but at the time was attractive to people whose other choice was “government without the consent of the governed and if the governed don't like it, they can sit in jail, or have lye thrown in their eyes”.    

Locke perpetuated the ideals of the contract and also added some new ideas, one of which he called, "mini governments", but which the prudish members of his circle convinced him to change to "republicanism" even though it was only two letters shorter.  This is was great, he said, because if local politicians dealt with the day to day struggles of people trying to buy homes and plant gardens,  national political figures would have more time to raise money, meet celebrities, and bestow formal congratulations upon little league teams from their district.

In the same class we also learned about America's Founding Fathers, who were credited with founding this country, drafting its founding documents, and making it clear to Britain that we were going to stop paying taxes , at least until we could come up with our own government that was closer to home.

One of the most famous Fathers was Alexander Hamilton, who, in addition to having a pointy nose, served in about 30 positions in and around the United States Government in a period of 12 years.  Beyond his public posts, Hamilton is revered for his heroic service to the country during the revolutionary war, which included a victory at The Battle of White Plains, which had something to do with whether or not it was considered “up state.”

Some of the Founding Fathers chose not to sign some of the documents.  They chose not to sign some of the documents because what they were doing was not popular among the lye throwers of the day and there were no cameras so it was possible that if things went sour, they could pretend they had not been in attendance, and at worst, they'd only be in trouble when whoever had been painting the scene finished his work and swam it to Britain. While this was a good and practical decision for men who were concerned about the safety of their families, it turned out to be an essentially crappy deal, because it all ended well, and other guys, who were no so cautious, signed it just for fun and ended up getting mentioned in every speech ever made by a right-wing conservative. 

This lesson of the founding fathers had a profound impact upon me as I continued my education and at every turn, when I did things that were potentially rude or disrespectful, I was careful to blame them on others only if it was plausible.  Of course, nothing I did was ever particularly exceptional, or in furtherance of the greater good, but since Jeff had given up anarchy for veganism, someone had to carry the torch.