[Cheburashka]

“Positive rights” are a scheme to enslave the people.
Food, shelter, medical care, education, etc., must alll be paid for. If there is a “right” to these things, then the “people” have a “right” to the labor of others. Naturally the State will be enforcing this right.

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Correct you are, but don't overlook the effect of multitudes of rights guaranteed in most constitutions. People may have tens or hundreds of rights enumerated, but there are always weasel words in the texts, and when X's right #47 conflicts with Y's right #139 some government bureaucrat gets to exercise his power by deciding how much of his right X gets, if any, and how much Y gets of his right. Expect the result to curtail both people's rights, unless one of them wins by paying the appropriate bribe.

[Little Ray]

I think the best summation of “rights” are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

and

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Basically, that seems to translate into “If it is not a power delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution, then the Feds can’t do it, and they can’t stop the States and the People from doing it.”

Too bad this isn’t the cornerstone of Federal Jurisprudence.