Argument177，城市俱乐部，四天！！

shadow1987UID: 2605840

TOPIC: ARGUMENT177 - The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette, a local newspaper.

"Membership in Oak City's Civic Club-a club whose primary objective is to discuss local issues-should continue to be restricted to people who live in Oak City. People who work in Oak City but who live elsewhere cannot truly understand the business and politics of the city. It is important to restrict membership to city residents because only residents pay city taxes and therefore only residents understand how the money could best be used to improve the city. At any rate, restricting membership in this way is unlikely to disappoint many of the nonresidents employed in Oak City, since neighboring Elm City's Civic Club has always had an open membership policy, and only twenty-five nonresidents have joined Elm City's Club in the last ten years."
WORDS: 411
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2010-8-7 0:38:48

In this argument, the author recommends that Oak City's Civic Club should continue to restrict its membership to people who live in Oak City. To bolster this conclusion, the author assumes that people who live elsewhere cannot understand the business in Oak City. For another reason, the author assumes that only residents understand how the money could best be used to improve the city since only residents in Oak City pay city taxes. The author points out that restricting membership is not aim to disappoint those nonresidents employed in Oak City and he cites the fact that neighboring Elm City's Civic Club has only twenty-five nonresidents in the last ten years even the club has no restriction. However, I find the author's conclusion dubious on several grounds.

In the first, the mere fact that Elm City's Civic Club have only twenty-five nonresident members does not necessarily mean that restricting membership is unlikely to disappoint nonresidents who work in Oak City. Perhaps, the Elm City is an extremely small city and their Civic Club only has fifteen members. In this case, quantity of nonresidents in the Elm City's Civic Club is already very large. Or perhaps, the leader of Elm City's Civic Club is incompetent, therefore, not only the nonresidents would not will to join the club but also the residents. Hence, without provides more detail about the Elm City and it Civic Club, the assumption that what happened in Elm City would also happen in Oak City falls short on its persuasiveness.

Secondly, the author assumes that nonresidents who are employed in Oak City cannot understand the business and politics of the city. Yet, there is no sufficient evidence to substantiate this conclusion. Perhaps, some of these nonresidents are famous people in field of business or the experts who study in politics, and it is awfully possible for these people to have a better understanding of Oak City. Or perhaps, some of these nonresidents are interested in Oak City and conduct many studies and surveys. Thereby, they can understand the Oak City's condition of business and politics even more easy than the residents.

Thirdly, even assuming that only residents pay the city tax, it is hastily for the author to draw the conclusion that only residents understand how the money could best be used to improve the city. It is in accordance to common sense that outsiders can point out the drawbacks of a place easily by comparing this place to another. Thereby, perhaps the nonresidents would notice some problems ignored by residents in Oak City and they might have many successful experience in solving these problems. Therefore, for the sake of improving the city, it is sagacious to introduce nonresidents into Oak City’s Civic Club. Without ruling out all these possible scenarios, the author's conclusion is under doubt.

To sum up, the author's conclusion is based on a series of unsubstantiated assumptions which render this conclusion unconvincing as it stands. To provides a more convincing conclusion, the author may need to reappraise the shortages and merits to open the Oak City’s Civic Club for nonresidents.