"You only have any rights because the rest of us pretty much agree that you have them." - Dean Esmay trying to quote Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven, from the book Lucifer’s Hammer. (He doesn’t have the book handy and is paraphrasing, but I don’t see how the original quote could be much better!)
He then goes on to cover what is rhetorical trick.

America was founded on an idea known as “natural rights,” at least as part of our founding myth. In truth not all of the Founders believed in the concept, but most went along with the general idea. From a certain perspective this concept of “natural rights” is helpful as a frame of reference, but really, it’s nothing but an intellectual tool. It’s a good way of getting people into the spirit of protecting each others’ rights, but ultimatey it’s nothing but sentiment.
…
As a matter of faith some may cleave to the notion that their rights come “ultimately” from God or some other higher source, or perhaps as some sort of elaborately worked out system of rationalization. But as a matter of pragmatism that is all superfluous; unless you believe that your Creator is going to take a direct hand in everyday affairs for you, you are utterly dependent upon our fellow men to protect your rights. To get your fellow men to do that, you’re going to have to get most of them to agree on what your rights are or, failing that, get them to agree that the system of government which protects those rights should be obeyed–which is six of the one and half a dozen of the other.

This is exactly why everyone should always be on the lookout for the rights of others. Because nothing else will. The nature of the government is to try to assume as much power as possible. This is because there are enough people out there who believe that the government should be in control of everything. We call those people assholes.
Right now the Big Thing© across the blogs is where Democrats at the Federal Election Commission now wants to regulate the internet for political speech. So if a blog, any blog, was to link to a politician’s website, they would be fined. If you said something to the effect of, “I like this candidate because…” you would be fined. This is all linked to that abomination of a law, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.
LaShawn gives a little background:

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is considering applying the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 to the Internet. With the complicity of our own George Bush, Congress violated the First Amendment by making law prohibiting certain groups from campaigning for political candidates in the months leading up to an election and limiting “soft money” contributions, although Congress is prohibited from “”¦abridging the freedom of speech, or”¦the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government.”

A little background on what is causing all this. In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. “The commission’s exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines” the campaign finance law’s purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
Smith and the other two Republican commissioners wanted to appeal the Internet-related sections. But because they couldn’t get the three Democrats to go along with them, what Smith describes as a “bizarre” regulatory process now is under way.
So, because Democrat mob bosses during the last election figured out what done them in was the Internet and other alternative media, they’re going to try to sink the entire thing. They have a lock on the main stream media, and probably figure that if everything else was controlled, they would have more of a chance.
Well, I am now hanging on my press hat. The Pirate-King site is now officially a media outlet. Anything on these pages are either hard news, opinion, comics, or classified ads. Just in case the feds come knocking down my door, because my fellow citizens do not care about my natural rights to freedom of speech.

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