When one depends upon the federal government to guard "rights" that properly belong to state, local, social, or individual authority, one does not protect one's rights. One surrenders them to the federal government. An entity powerful enough to guarantee "rights" is powerful enough to take them away. They are, then, no longer rights, but mere privileges granted by our benevolent overlord.
Take, for example, the second amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not
be
infringed." Now, because the right of the people to bear arms is mentioned in the Constitution, the federal government has jurisdiction over the "right". As such, the government has passed laws restricting that right. Laws that might even seem reasonable, such as bans on assault rifles or artillery pieces.
One might say that the founders could not envision such weapons, otherwise they would not have written the second amendment so broadly. If one were to say that, however, one would be wrong. The founders were able to envision progress and they wrote that into this brilliant document: Article V of the U.S. Constitution allows the amendment process in order to update the document when it becomes out of date.
Ergo, restrictions on the second amendment demonstrate that the right to bear arms is no longer a right, but a privilege granted by the Washington politicians and bureaucrats who so broadly influence our lives.
Consider, as another example, the "right to privacy". It appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution because the founders did not create a government entity capable of invading the citizens' privacy. Such intrusions were for state or local governments. Ergo, the founders did not include such a right, and it was, therefore, a right.
In the 1960s and 1970s, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court discovered a right to privacy (hidden amongst the emanations from penumbra), privacy became a federal concern. Now, our right to privacy is contingent upon the good will of Washington politicians and bureaucrats.
Any affirmatively granted right is not a right, but a privilege granted by one in authority. The U.S. Constitution is not, primarily, a listing of rights, but rather a technical document describing the functioning of a new system of government. Certain founders who were opposed to any listing of rights understood that such a list could unnecessarily limit those rights held by the people. Further, any listing of rights gives the federal government jurisdiction over those rights, to adjudicate them as it will.
In the current context, one can hear certain groups or politicians talking about the "right to a job" or the "right to health-care". What does this actually mean?
If the federal government is suddenly the guarantor of a "right to a job", then the federal government has authority to determine who works where, for how long, for what pay, et cetera. It is no longer a right that individuals guarantee themselves through hard work, determination, and perseverance, but rather, a privilege granted by an authority.
Likewise, the "right to health-care" becomes a benevolent gift granted by our overlord and may be dispensed as he wills. Treatment can be denied out of spite, boredom, or for any reason at all, let alone when the federal government so badly runs the system that it runs out of money.
We place ourselves at the mercy of bureaucrats, interest groups, and politicians when we allow our inalienable rights to be "guaranteed" by the federal government.