"I never said the social contract mimics medieval contracts in every way"

"The contract bit is based on an older, more medieval understanding of contract in the first place. The vassal gave up rights to get rights from the lord. That was a contract."

What contract were you referring to, if not the magical "social" contract that has been under discussion for the last 50 posts or so?

"express consent going down the generations was not essential."

This is not true - homage was expected to be re-rendered with every new generation, else one party or another could (and did) claim that the 'contract' did not apply to them. See, for instance, the counties of the Marca Hispanica that essentially seceded from the Frankish kingdom in the 9th and 10th centuries, or the great lordships of what we now call Southern France (until the 13th century when royal authority was largely re-asserted). Or the obsession of the chroniclers over whether the Kings of England rendered homage to the Kings of France for the former's French possessions in the 12th-14th centuries.

I like memes~! My favorite is Marcel Marceau.

"I am wondering if any of the proponents of the "social contract" would be willing to clearly define the bounds and parameters of said contract."

See - Constitution. I figured somebody like Tolstoy would know this already.

Never miss an opportunity to go on a hysterical rant about big bad gubmint though.

"See - Constitution"

Hmm... I've flipped through it, but I can't find the part where the individual's "responsibilities" to "society" are enumerated. In fact, the constitution seems to talk only about the government. No mention of society or individuals or any obligations the two have to one another.

The Constitution authorizes the government to, among other things, collect taxes from the population - which is the main point we were discussing. It explicitly states that it all authorities within the US are bound by it. Since popular referendums and popularly elected assemblies ratified the Constitution and/or joined the Union and thereby agreed to its supremacy as a condition of admission, that is an explicit contract detailing the powers of the state over its citizens as well as the rights citizens have under the rule of the state.

Yes, I remember hearing all that when I was in the government youth indoctrination program ("public skool") as well. You still haven't answered any of my original questions.

I'll distill them all down to one question: at what point does the "social contract" become so unconscionably (to use a legal term) onerous and oppressive that it is essentially voided, and the individual has no responsibility to "uphold" their "end"?

I am fairly certain Putin will find no such limit, but I'm interested in hearing from other "contracteers".