On Socialism, Radical Islam and Fridrich von Hayek

I was lately introduced to von Hayek writing and his monumental book '"The Road to Serfdom." Hayek talks there about development that had happened in the European arena of thought that lead to the rise of Socialistic ideas which are anathema to the ideas of freedom. Basically, he'd confined his criticism to developments that stem from the ideas that the economics must be planned, controlled and guided from above.
He did not go far enough because he did not see the rise of Radical Islam and he could not see beyond the European arena. But we could see what is going on today. There is really no difference between Radical Islam and the Socialists of all parties (left, right and in between) that Hayek is talking about. The only difference is that the RI does not emphasize economics per se. As the Socialists of all parties of the past, RI is working for the victory of a certain group (not a race, a nation or a class as in Europe, but the believers in Allah [but only those who believe in a certain way!]) And its goal is a world that is not about individual freedom, but a world that is directed in all aspects, by a certain plan. Make no mistake, there is no difference in the results whether the plan was conceived by a madman like Hitler in the nineteen twenties, or by a pseudo-philosopher like Marks in the eighteen sixties or by a self-declared prophet like Muhammad and his followers in the seventh century. Freedom will cease to exist under their control.
That I am correct in my assessment was beautifully demonstrated when the Time Square Bomber squarely contrasted the RI with the Democracies (in the original meaning of that term, not the mockery that is and was the People-Democracies like in Cuba and currently the Chavez-ism in Venezuela) and alluded to the final victory of his own side. The sense that RI is yet another totalitarian theory is strengthened by the apparent comradeship between another form of RI, that of Iran with the emerging socialist totalitarianism in Venezuela under Chavez.
It is only a poetic justice, or maybe an important international development that the two forms of RI are fast moving towards a full blown conflict and direct confrontation among themselves. I am afraid that the leaders of the free world lack the imagination to use that confrontation to defeat both of these evil monsters.

On the Newest Development in Standardization of Modern Hebrew

This is an answer I've published in another blog...

It is true that languages evolve and live languages evolve lively. Greek, for example evolved so much so, that modern Greek speakers have no idea what the ancient texts in that language say without translation. English is a prime example for that evolution (try to read King James and then try to read Beowulf.)
I will not get into the question whether the nequdot are Torah leMoshe miSinai or are a later development. Suffice to say that leKhulei 'Alma, by the Ninth century, the Biblical Hebrew was codified around the Kether Ben-Asher. The language thus got a strong, standard baseline that was revered enough to disallow any diversion from the basic grammar while allowing enough flexibility to absorb foreign terminology, changes in the syntax and still live in peace with other layers of the language (the attempt of the grammarians to "correct" some Mishnaic text was mentioned in this discussion.)
This standard baseline also allowed several, equally 'correct' dialects of the language to co-exist. The Yemanites are famous to preserve distinction between all vowels and consonants, but even the Ahkenazi, 'Iraqi and Sephardi dialects and their local variations preserved most of such distinctions, if in different pronunciations. But the most important effect of this baseline is that Hebrew is probably the only living language that its learned speakers may master or at least have a fair understanding of most historical layers of the language, at least from late biblical times onward.
In modernizing the language and making it into a national language of the political entity of the State of Israel, some steps were taken with intended and unintended results.

1. The language was 'standardized' based on the Sephardi standard, but as this standard is performed (pronounced) by the Ashkenazi population. The result was the bastardization of the language and is the main cause of the sloppy pronunciation by the whole population.

2. The baseline ceased to be revered because of the secularization of the society. The result is that every Zav uMetzora' allow him/herself to change to their heart content. One such change that was luckily, rejected, was the suggestion by 'Uzi Ornan (a disciple of No'am Chomsky) to switch to Latin Characters (an inferior writing system that cannot represent any of the gutturals, especially the consonant Aleph! BTW, Aleph exists in most non-European languages.)

3. With the modern poor educational system that abandoned teaching grammar (US is as guilty as Israel in that,) the Israelis began to loose their connection with the proper Hebrew. The result is the inventions of structures that are not needed otherwise and neglecting the proper pronunciations.

The Academy was appointed to preserve the baseline while introducing new words and maybe new structures when no such structures exist. When they were doing so, I could have argue with Rabbi Teitz and others that there is no real difference between Hebrew and Loshon Kodesh and the invention of the term Loshon Kodesh as defining a different language was no more then political invention of the Anti-Zionist, frumi Jews, I can no longer stand by this argument. There
is now a drive in the secular world to separate the two languages by actively destroying the connection with the baseline. I think that the people who lend their name to that development will be judged harshly by history. I may just imagine the unintended consequences of such moves.
I will forever stay with the language that will become to be known as Loshon Kodesh.