http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/10/kimberly-paxton/high-school-death-panel%E2%80%A8/
LewRockwell.comanti-state•anti-war•pro-market
Forget Glee Club and Football – This High School Has a Death Panel!
By Kimberly Paxton
The Daily Sheeple
October 12, 2013
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Critics of the public school system will be pleased to know that St. Joseph-Ogden High School in Illinois is preparing kids for the future by teaching them practical skills.
That’s right – 15 and 16 year olds just had an assignment on how to distribute limited medical resources amongst a small sampling of the population. They got to pick who deserves to live and who deserves to die.
The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis.
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“The assignment you are referring to is not a “Death Panel” assignment. The assignment is one in the sociology unit of our Introduction To Social Studies class. The purpose of the assignment is to educate students about social values and how people in our society unfortunately create biases based off of professions, race, gender, etc. The teacher’s goal is to educate students in the fact that these social value biases exist, and that hopefully students will see things from a different perspective after the activity is completed. The teacher’s purpose in the element of the assignment you are referring to is to get students emotionally involved to participate in the classroom discussion, and to open their minds to the fact that they themselves have their own social biases. The assignment has nothing to do with a “Death Panel.”
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Sure, surem sure.
Doesn’t look that way to me.
Implicit in the exercise is that the “student” has a moral imperative to make such decisions.
Or that, in fact, such decisions are made in our society.
Having known an older person undergoing dialysis, the free market, that wonder engine of chaotic order, has no such 6/10 shortage.
It’s a limitation that doesn’t exist in the real world.
A while ago, more than a decade, I saw a brand new HUGE dialysis center by the airport. Far larger than would be needed by the small number of relatively healthy natives. I was curious so I called them talked to the Director. (Astonishingly he answer his own phone that was publicly listed.) He told me that it was built by the community with support from the hotels FOR TOURISTS who needed dialysis while they were on vacation. They accepted Medicare, all insurances, and cash. The “cash rate” was about a third of what my relative paid in NYC. And the fellow was very apologetic that the “cash price” was so high but all the critical supplies had to be airlifted in due to expiration dates.
I was floored.
So, let’s put “WalMart” in charge of everything. (WalMart is my metaphor for a truly free market.)
Argh!
So hospital with only capacity for 6 could put on a second shift for capacity of 12. Now we just have to figure out how to pay for it. How about a “Bake Sale”? Wanna bet if our society can sell naming rights of stadiums, our second shift’s name can be sold.
I think “Reinke’s Ranters” has a nice ring to it.
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Reinke Faces Life 