Because, as Warren Buffet said, you grew up in a society which was the creation of others before you, and if you didn't have that society you and your parents wouldn't have had your own food, shelter and clothing.
Sure, I owe Society something for providing a starting point. I don't advocate anarchy. But what is this "society" you speak of and for so authoritatively? Further, what is the actual fabric of that society that has benefitted me and that I owe? Yet further, what parts of society actually hindered me? Certainly you realize that our society, like any framework, has its good parts and bad parts. Have you thought about that? Have you followed that thought to its logical conclusion in that some people succeed despite obstacles put forth by the society they live in? Think about what a woman who taught herself how to read in Afghanistan circa 1999. What did she owe the goals of the Taliban? Ooh, the government != society? Now you're really thinking... I like that.
I claim that the society that I owe my starting point to is one that encourages personal responsibility by letting the successful keep the lion's share of their rewards. The society that I owe is one that establishes fundamental primary value in personal liberty, unleashing the individual to reach whatever heights of success he or she is able to. The society that I owe is one that encourages free and open markets to allow individuals to create products and services that others in the society will want to pay for, thus vindicating the value of such products and services.
In short: Yes, I owe society -- but not the collectivist/socialist society you would like me to pay into. I owe the society built upon the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. All the obstacles that some have put in my way through tyrannical subjugation of the Individual by the State are to be battled and destroyed, not funded.
As biologists and anthropologists have now proven with pretty good scientific rigor, communities that survive are the ones in which people are cooperative and altruistic. The ones that aren't cooperative and altruistic don't survive.
Oh, hell... so from the biological perspective, maybe if we were all just mindless hive members listening to the commands of our leaders, we'd be more successful as a society? No thanks.
From an anthropological perspective, citation? Are you going to argue against the explosive societal growth that was the American experiment in individual liberty? Are you going to claim that America was founded as a non-cooperative society because we didn't guarantee free food, shelter, and clothing in the Constitution? If so, you may want to go Google the constitution of the failed Soviet State. They guaranteed a huge list of freebies. It looked like an OWSer's dream document. We all know what happened to the Soviets.
I just went through this argument again with a self-described conservative[...]
Dude, I can't be bothered to formulate arguments to defend the positions of so-called "conservatives" with whom you've argued who may or may not exist, who may have actually cleaned your clock logic-wise -- but you may not have understood what they were saying well enough to relate it here.