I went through school in the 70s and 80s, and also remember learning about the clear dividing lines of inalienable human rights spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution that made us different from the Soviet Union.

Maybe the difference was never as black and white as it seemed to me at the time, but I still believe we have been drifting away from the protection of basic rights I was once taught were so important to who we are as a people.