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We've corrected a great deal, largely by deciding to follow, instead of flaunt, the structure laid out in the founding documents...

There's truth in that statement. But it's helpful to recognize that there are two separate issues at work. One is the recognition of human rights in the abstract; the other is, essentially, the definition of "human". The founding fathers perceived no contradiction between "life, liberty, etc.," and slavery, because they viewed their African slaves as sub-human. They were right in their views on human rights, but wrong in the scope of their application.

Today, we've improved on the latter point. In fact we're in danger of going too far. We not only recognize that rights transcend sex, race, etc, but there is a growing notion that rights transcend species.

As pertains individual rights, however, there is an increasing belief that it is moral to expropriate the property of others because "someone needs it". The net effect is that, say, African Americans have much more freedom than African Americans of the 18th century--but both whites and blacks have less freedom that did propertied whites of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Merging those two aspects into one results in a deceptive picture.

rather than resign themselves to thinking of "true" civilization as "a long way away", I would hope people would fight anarchy and tyranny

I'm not sure what you mean by "fighting anarchy", but it sounds like you are talking about actively resisting the advent of true civilization. So long as a privileged class has the power to initiate force against the rest of the population, so long will we be a society of rats jockeying for a place at the top of the pile.

In true civilization, nobody has any power to aggress against another, and anyone who goes ahead and aggresses anyway will meet a swift and forceful response. Today, a privileged class is allowed to shoot you, and is granted the presumption that his shooting you was legitimate.

The more people for whom you deny property and bodily rights, the more people you cut off an opportunity to make important, unique, and beneficial contributions to sustaining and bettering the civilization.

I agree. We're talking about which imperfection is worse, which is a losing battle. You'd prefer limited but equal oppression for all; I'd prefer complete absence of oppression for a large majority. In the one case, we're all oppressed, and continue the human struggle to trade places with our oppressors rather than ending the oppression itself. In the other, we at least have an example of what we should be striving for.

By "fighting anarchy" I mean organizing and working out interpersonal agreements. I think that in a state of chaos after a collapse of a social structure, this is something people will have to do if they want to head off tyranny. I also don't think the right thing will just sort of happen automatically, I think people will actually have to do the work of talking to their neighbors and discussing agreements and the reasons for them.

I consider this an example of formation of constitutionalism. There is some structure. It may or not be written down (you may or may not think writing it down better or worse). It can vary widely in detail (with some details being better than others, you and I may or may not agree on all). But it is not anarchy, so far as I am aware of the meaning of the word. There are structured rules, even if that structure is along the line of ideas like "for any given person, that person will defend his life, when attacked, with firepower". Even then, it is constitutionalism, and it is a type of rule by law. It is also not absolute freedom (that would technically include the freedom for you to steal my car without punishment), but I think constitutionalism, in at least some forms, has the potential for pushing up to a very high extent *just* freedom (freedom for me to not have my car stolen).

As far as having a world in which everyone is a little oppressed, versus one in which some group of people is very free (and a few people oppressed? not clear on your reason for "a large majority"), I can see your point about it being an important consideration in figuring out what the general trajectory has been. However, I'm still not convinced that the core part of the trajectory is what you say (and this in part because of the strength of the US conservative movement since the 1980s, even despite its flaws). Insofar as I suspect the overall trajectory may be downhill, I blame imperfections in things like the money system, and ideas about the educational system, and the fact that we were starting out with slavery (the important fighting of which provided opportunity for massive expansion of government power), that were there from the beginning. For these things, I doubt they would have had the effects they did, had they initially been laid out differently and clearly, and backed by strong cultural opinion.

As far as picking between a system in which people are a "little" oppressed or one in which a majority are "truly" free (does that mean *absolutely* free? because I have problems with that, see above, I think that technically includes to be "free" to infringe on rights and go unpunished), well, I'm not keen on the first and I'm not clear on the second. I'm interested in people having as much *just* freedom--say, freedom to keep their own cars, no freedom to steal their neighbors' cars without punishment--as possible, "possible" given that I don't think it is a cinch to come to interpersonal agreements that do everything well, let alone perfectly.