lewrockwell.com
Chris Sullivan

Back in the ’70s, I used to expect the government to suffer a financial collapse at which time it would have to quit doing most of the things it’s doing because it would run out of money. That isn’t what has happened. Instead of cutting spending it has printed more money and tried to increase taxes on various things.

Like many things historical, there’s a precedent for this. There’s a proverbial saying that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” but it didn’t collapse in a day either. Probably most of the Romans who lived as the Empire was collapsing didn’t realize that was what was happening, but plenty of them realized they weren’t living in the good old days.

One such person was a man named Salvian, sometimes called Salvian the Presbyter. He wrote a treatise that is called in English The Governance Of God or De gubernatione Dei in Latin*.

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Techdirt
Mike Masnick

Apparently there’s been a years-long effort in Italy to give the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) some regulatory authority to enforce copyrights online. And apparently there has been some fighting over this (mostly over AGCOM’s competence in this field). However, according to The 1709 Blog, it appears that AGCOM is now giving up its goal of regulating copyright online:

Although AGCOM has showed its ability to reconcile the various rights and interests involved in copyright, it will not go ahead with its copyright regulation. This is because Italian Government has not yet adopted the proviso needed to clarify the nature and extension of AGCOM’s competence to this end. Therefore, until this happens, AGCOM will not feel obliged to adopt its “well-balanced” regulation.

This, of course, does not mean that there is no online copyright in Italy. Just that it’s not being regulated by AGCOM for the time being. Considering just how badly pretty much every attempt to regulate copyright has gone recently, perhaps this is a good thing.

upi.com

WAYNESBORO, Va., May 6 (UPI) — The Secret Service arrested a Virginia man for allegedly making repeated death threats against President Barack Obama, authorities say.

Christopher Hecker of Waynesboro was arrested this week, and is being detained pending an evaluation, The (Staunton) News Leader reported.

Hecker allegedly sent an e-mail to WVTF Public Radio in Roanoke April 19 with a subject line saying: “I am going to kill the president of the United States.”

Alternative Right
Alex Kurtagic

The Moral Scourge of Modernity

The dominant ideology of modern Western societies upholds equality as an absolute moral good, which must, therefore, be pursued for its own sake. The morality of egalitarianism is never questioned by the establishment power structure or by the vast majority of citizens; it is, in fact, a taken-for granted assumption that exists outside the scope of acceptable debate. Predicated on the arbitrary assertion that all humans are born equal in dignity and rights, and bearer of such rights by the mere fact of being human, able to reason, or endowed with dignity (note the circular reasoning) it makes of anyone questioning the moral goodness of equality into an individual of questionable humanity. Even conservatives dare not question the moral goodness of equality, focusing instead on critiquing the methods of application. Yet, equality, despite the high-flown rhetoric surrounding it, is far from an absolute moral good. On the contrary, when we examine the consequences of equality, it is an evil. This article will first explore some of the ways in which equality is an evil and will then put forth an alternative paradigm, founded on a theory of difference.

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