Declinism, attractive as it is, is an easy stance to take. It
can be defended with nothing more than paeans to the way things
were, rooted more in sentiment than facts or data. Because of
this, the back of a declinist's head is populated, always, with
the nagging suspicion that everyone feels this way about America
after a certain age. Nowadays we long for the simplicity and
relative equality of our parent's generation, the postwar years.
But baby boomers grew up wondering if and when the United States
and the Soviet Union would destroy the entire planet with
nuclear weapons, and they likely longed for the simplicity of
their parent's generation -- who, for their part, had the
privilege of participating in the bloodiest conflict ever in
world history.  But it has been proven in a number of ways that
things are worse today than they used to be. And whether they
will continue that way is anyone's guess. The best way, perhaps,
to prove something is in decline is to isolate it from other
variables -- especially n