All civilizations have, at one time or another, thought that they were declining, so it behooves us to keep some historical perspective on the current apocalyptic pronouncements. The fact remains, certainly, that civilizations do pass from history, leaving behind their ruins that we still study today. But national decline is not inevitable. Decline is a choice, not a destiny. Thinking about why a people chooses their nation’s decline, then, is more useful than speculating about whether America definitively is or isn’t on a downward spiral.