I'm surprised you didn't cover this in middle school
There is no Truth-based education or information given via the so-called education system.
According to Thomas Hobbes,
Hobbes is a supremely deranged human being, and what he says is wrong.
human life would be "nasty, brutish, and short" without political authority.
Insanity. The Truth is that current societies have created more suffering, death and psychological dysfunction than any free, sane natural animal ever has created.
In its absence, we would live in a state of nature,
Illogical. This is a "false dillemma". There are other options. You cannot justify or rationilize something by the alternative.
Further, nature is better than the ultra-deseased socities of humanity.
where we each have unlimited natural freedoms, including the "right to all things" and thus the freedom to harm all who threaten our own self-preservation
Yes, society DOES choke the freedo, from you citizen-slaves. Nature entails freedom. Yes, to harm other IS a freedom, and a natural and indispenisble part of life. Protecting and self-preservation actions are perfectly sane and appropriate actions.
there would be an endless "war of all against all" (Bellum omnium contra omnes).
That is one possibility via nature. That is better than what society has produced and made our lives.
Society only amplified this effect.
free men establish political community
No citizen-slave of any human society has freedom. There are NO free men to establish anything. Wrong again.
i.e. civil society through a social contract in which each gain civil rights in return for subjecting himself to civil law or to political authority.
This is a lie.
1) There can be no such things as a "social contract". There is no Truth-based legitimacy that any human could possibly agree to any contract from society to enter or agree to abide by that society. The Truth is that when born each human is ENSLAVED again his will into that society.
2) There is no such thing as individual rights. This is a total lie that societies worldwide have brainwashed you into believing.
3) Society has no business dictating to anyone what they should do in the first place, therefore society cannot subject you to any alternative to the contract, or the contract itself. There is no way that society can place a legitimate condition on refusing the "contract".
Alternatively, some have argued that we gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others,
I have news for you : Individual hman rights do NOT exist. You are just all ORDERED what to think and what to do.
giving up some freedoms to do so;
No loyal member of soceity has ANY legitimate freedom whatsoever. The only Truth-based form of freedom is Mental Freedom, which no brainwashed citizen-slave possess.
this alternative formulation of the duty arising from the social contract is often identified with arguments about military service.
"Military service" is nothing more than brainwashing, or otherwise forcing.co-ercing, innocent humans to literally commit mass murder for the cathartic release of homicidal societal leaders.
Conclusion : What a total breakdown of sanity and reason you have. You just blindly accept these lies without analysing them.
By arguing a "contract", you just beg the question again. That can never be an answer. You are resorting to circular justification.