Rereading Locke's Second Essay

A couple of weeks ago I reread Locke’s Second Essay on Civil Government.  I had not read it since I was a teenager. It is still the greatest work on political philosophy I have ever found.  Its principles and insights provide a generally sound basis for a free society. Something I noticed this time (and probably didn’t when I was 17) is  how few of his arguments and conclusions  depend on his hypothesis of the  origination of most governments in contracts by their subjects.  His critics are right to question the hypothesis but wrong to think it matters very much.  His ideas on such things as  the limits of government, the reasons governments are useful, the dangers of tyranny, and the right under certain conditions to rebel are  valid and compelling. (He even warns against legislators delegating the power to make  rules to others,  a danger we in the United States learned far too much about during the Bush and especially the Obama administrations.)   I wish everyone starting to think about political philosophy would read it. It could get a person off  to a splendid start.