Are you saying you think 'rights' are more than just a popular meme?

Everything can be reduced to some abstraction level where it is apparently meaningless, but in the context of a group of people living together (in close enough proximity as to encounter each other during the ordinary course of their monthly activities), the group will need to agree on some things that we can do without question and some things that we can't do without question. The existence of a "right" is predicated on the existence of some form of limitation (law, regulation, etc.).

Think of rights as a limited blacklist rule system. Things that are rights are acceptable, except for certain things within a narrow blacklist (speech is free in the US, but screaming "fire" in a theater and threatening to murder people are both blacklisted as not acceptable).

Things not enumerated as rights can be thought of as a combination of blacklist and whitelist rule systems. For example, it is generally illegal to kill somebody, but you may be allowed to in self-defense. One could claim (in my opinion, rightfully so) that we have a right to self-defense, but because this is not enumerated as a right in the constitution, it is a debated topic.

it's clear, based on all of this, that "rights" is, at the very least, a useful abstraction when defining rules. As long as at least some rules are needed to maintain order in a collection of people living in close proximity, then it should follow that the "rights" are useful in helping to define those rules and the limitations placed on making such rules. In fact, unless you were advocating for anarchism, one could argue that the existence of "rights" is the only possible way to live in a system that has rules and still be guaranteed to not be harassed by the state for doing some basic things (like speaking your mind). Without the rule of law, rights don't matter, which is why states like California and New York coincidentally both limit your rights that are protected under the constitution and also do not enforce basic laws (like arresting shoplifters, etc.). These places both exhibit traits of a failing states, such as lacking adherence to the rule of law. These are examples of broken and corrupted government; nothing is perfect and maintenance of government, in order to prevent it turning out like these examples, is surely not an exception to that.