Three things:

1) If I buy a table, I can, in fact, modify it, resell it, and understand it. I can understand the world around me.

2) If I buy a book, it doesn't come with an EULA which makes me promise my firstborn to a trillion-dollar company. I had patents which expired, and copyrights with fair use provisions. There was a legislative balance.

3) Until a few decades ago, cars and electronics did come with service manuals which, for radios and TVs, contained the full circuit schematic.

The sorts of rights Stallman is talking about are ones which software is new in taking away.

I'd like them back.