"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." - Thomas Jefferson 1820

"There is a growing technology of testing that permits us now to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn't be doing at all." - Dr. Gerald Bracey author of Rotten Apples in Education

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Monday, November 28, 2011

Obamacare Refers to People as "Units". Education Reform Refers to Students as "Human Capital". Worried Yet?



Elizabeth Scalia (The Anchoress) has an excellent article about the dehumanization of people under Obamacare. She recounts (and provides a transcript) of a radio interview she heard on the Mark Levin show from a neurosurgeon:

The caller said that he had recently gone to Washington to participate in a conference involving both the American Association of Neurosurgeons (AANS) and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). I couldn’t take notes while driving, but the gist of the call was this: these surgeons were told, by a member of the Department of Health and Human Services that under the new health insurance legislation (aka Obamacare) government-insured people over the age of 70 who present with brain issues — stroke, hemorrhages, etc — would see no automatic surgical intervention, as they might now. Before any surgery could be begun, an “ethics” panel — made up not of doctors but of administrators and bureaucrats — would convene assess whether the person would be treated. “As a general course, though,” the caller said, “only ‘comfort care’ would be offered if you’re over 70.”
“So, generally speaking, it will be ‘comfort care only’ for patients over 70? That will be the rule, rather than the exception?” Asked a horrified-sounding Levin.
“Yes, but they’re not referred to as patients, or even subjects,” the caller corrected, “they’re called ‘units’. That’s what they called them.”

Appalling? Dehumanization at its ugliest? This has been going on for quite some time in the education reform movement. Students aren't individuals with individual needs. They are "human capital" and their inherent value is to supply the workforce.

You can access information about the workforce model envisioned by the education reform movement here. What is apparent from the Obamacare term of "units" and the education term of "human capital" is that there is a profound and intentional shift away from:

"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth" (Abraham Lincoln)....to a Totalitarian Democracy: A system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government" (Israeli historian JL Talmon).

When you are deemed to be no longer useful to the "state", you are not provided services. Plain and simple. The current push toward labeling people as "units" and "human capital" negates their usefulness as human beings and instead, rates them according to their usefulness to the system. Look at the above graph. Human capital is not as important to an organization as it once was, so is it any shock human beings aren't as of much value in the larger society?

The system has supplanted the human beings who have supported it and the system is feeding the system, NOT the people it was designed to serve. The servant (the government) has now become the master of the people. Government panels (bureaucrats and administrators) will decide if and when you receive health care and what educational track is best for students to travel for the good of the workforce.

The connection between Obamacare and education reform is quite simple. Centralization and dehumanization are the primary concepts of these programs. Human beings (possessing souls and individual thoughts and desires) are now labeled and designated as inanimate objects: units and human capital.

This is how your government views its citizens. Scalia entitled her article "Assessing People as "Units" is Evil":


Assessing human beings as “units” is Evil.
Period, full stop. It is a diabolical disorientation. The only people who do not understand that are people who also have difficulty with that inconvenient old conscience thing.The caller to Levin’s show said he was a neurosurgeon, and of German descent. He mentioned his ancestry at the same time he discussed “units” and admitted he was distressed. The source of his distress was very likely his recognition of a the sort of ruthless efficiency someone in his family once knew first hand, either from one side of the ledger, or the other.

She is correct. I offer an addendum to her excellent title: "Assessing People as "Units" and "Human Capital" is Evil. What is occurring in educational "reform" is an educational version of Obamacare and just as evil.

4 comments:

  1. You do realize that this caller was a fraud, right? There are no such document or policy, nor was there a discussion about all this, as was confirmed by all the referenced organizations (AANS, CNS, HHS). Could you please try some honesty?

    http://factcheck.org/2012/01/neurological-death-panels/

    ReplyDelete
  2. It looks that while this document may not have existed, the intent of referring to people as human capital and ranking them by their age IS well documented by Ezekiel Emanuel, in his "Complete Lives Cycle". In fact, resources will be allocated to those folks between the ages of 15-40 years old. Have you had a chance to review that document which is important to the premise of Obamacare?

    http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2009/08/ezekiel-emanuel-complete-lives-system.html

    From the document:

    "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated. It therefore superficially resembles the proposal made by DALY advocates; however, the complete lives system justifies preference to younger people because of priority to the worst-off rather than instrumental value. Additionally, the complete lives system assumes that, although life-years are equally valuable to all, justice requires the fair distribution of them. Conversely, DALY allocation treats life-years given to elderly or disabled people as objectively less valuable."

    You might as well take what this "fraudulent" caller stated with a grain of truth. Elderly or disabled people are treated as less valuable. Call them units or call them less valuable; it doesn't really matter, now does it?

    Resources are limited, people are human capital. Whether or not this caller stated the entire truth, he spoke the stated truth from Ezekiel Emanuel about what's ahead for the elderly and disabled. I guess Nancy Pelosi's words are coming back to haunt us. It would have been much more preferable to know what was in the bill before it was signed, don't you think?

    Could you look at this bill and honestly tell me you don't think people won't be looked at as units and/or human capital? They already are in education, why not health care?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is there any such document existing from the Obama administration that refers to patients as "units"?If so,what is the context?Not sure that E.Emanual speaks for any one but himself.What exactly is the connection?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Wayne, here is Ezekiel Emanuel's connection with the Obama White House, as well as Bill Clinton's Health Initiative:

    http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/02/dr_ezekiel_emanuel_rahms_broth.html

    I am looking into your question for this administration referring to people as "units".

    ReplyDelete

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