What you’re missing is that the set of rights European countries recognize and the set of rights that the American government recognizes are not the same set.
In Europe they recognize a right to be forgotten that simply does not exist in the US. Europe recognizes personal data rights that the US does not. These data rights impose requirements on the way companies manage your data and specifically do not allow, e.g., Facebook to get you to consent that your rights do not apply. The European government protects imposes citizens’ rights on businesses in several ways that the US government does not.
On the other hand, US free speech rights are generally stronger. And of course no one else except US citizens have an inalienable right to sleep on a bed made of loaded handguns.
Obviously the rights that the state grants are different in the US than Europe, but the rights of individuals are protected versus other individuals, corporations, and general organisations; just as they are in all civilised countries. To the extent you can have famous cases where people sue large coffee franchises for selling coffee that's too hot.
So the statement that "the whole concept of rights in the US are, in the main, about restricting what the federal government and states can do individuals" is far from reality, and I felt it necessary to ground this conversation back in reality.
> but the rights of individuals are protected versus other individuals, corporations, and general organisations; just as they are in all civilised countries
Kind of. In the US there is no protection of free speech when posting in Twitter or Facebook, for example. There isn’t even a consent issue here. There’s no need for you to consent that Facebook can sensor your speech because you have no right to free speech in that context at all.
This is exactly what the poster was presumably referring to. Many rights in the us are in fact only protected from infringement by the government.
In Europe they recognize a right to be forgotten that simply does not exist in the US. Europe recognizes personal data rights that the US does not. These data rights impose requirements on the way companies manage your data and specifically do not allow, e.g., Facebook to get you to consent that your rights do not apply. The European government protects imposes citizens’ rights on businesses in several ways that the US government does not.
On the other hand, US free speech rights are generally stronger. And of course no one else except US citizens have an inalienable right to sleep on a bed made of loaded handguns.