In all those ways modern conservatism arose as a defence of the individual against potential oppressors, and an endorsement of popular sovereignty. However, it opposed the view that political order is founded on a contract, as well as the parallel suggestion that the individual enjoys freedom, sovereignty and rights in a state of nature, and can throw off the burden of social and political membership, and start again from a condition of absolute freedom. For the conservative, human beings come into this world burdened by obligations, and subject to institutions and traditions that contain within them a precious inheritance of wisdom, without which the exercise of freedom is likely to destroy human rights and entitlements as to enhance them.
-Roger Scruton, Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition
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