Argument77【米国有米】小组 寒假作业1.28

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177The 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."

1.oak 市的本地居民了解商业和政治比非本地居民要深刻  错误
2.由于OAK市居民交税，所以他们知道best way to improve city 错误
3.比较错误，其他城市的club政策和本地club政策不能作为同类比较，条件环境不同

In this letter, the speaker points out that the residents of Oak city can understand the business and politics better than nonresidents who work in the city. Also, the speaker points out that resident know the best way to improve the city, because of the city taxes payment discipline. and then, the speaker compare to the neighboring Elm City's Civic Club's membership policy and conclude that Oak City's Civic Club should  be restricted to people who live in Oak City. This argument contains several logic flaws, which render it unconvincing.

To begin with, the argument assumes unfairly that the residents of Oak city can understand the business and politics better that the nonresidents. The speaker overlooked myriad of other possibilities. The residents are not necessarily work in Oak city. Everyday he gets up early to work and go home late in the afternoon. We cannot expect a resident like he can understand the business and politics of the city deeply. And the speaker points out that the nonresidents cannot understand the business and politics oft the city from no where. The nonresidents who work in the city maybe a business man who control the biggest international company in the city or a publicist who critical the city's polity everyday. These kinds of people can truly understand the city even better than the residents. With all these possibilities, the speaker cannot convince me to believe that the resident can understand city better than nonresidents.

Moreover, the speaker claims that only residents understand how the money could be used to improve the city because of who pay city taxes. However, there is no evidence represent that the tax payer will understand the best spending way to improve the city. As we all know, tax is one kind of fund which force to be given by every citizen. Maybe the reason that residents pay the tax is not because they want to but they have to. So, these behaviors cannot be the grounds of argument to illustrate speaker's point. Even if the residents want to make a contribution for their city, that does not mean the residents know the exactly method which use the money for the contribution. They can only give advice to the powerful people who predominate the progress direction of the city. So, it also cannot be the talking point of this argument.

Finally, even if the speaker can substantiates the uncertain assumptions. The comparison is irrational for speaker's stand point. Firstly, the club's membership policy of neighboring city has nothing to do with Oak city's policy. Secondly, if there are some connections between them, it can only make the nonresidents in Oak city feel sulkiness because they are considered as foreigners. And that will affect the working mood of nonresidents and then lead a series chain reaction. The speaker point out that and only twenty-five nonresidents have joined Elm City's Club in the last ten years which cannot be the evidence of the argument with such a limited number.

In summary, this argument is not persuasive as it stands. To make it more convincing, the speaker would have to prove evidence concerning the residents can understand the city better than nonresidents. To better evaluate the argument, we would need more information regarding the negative effect to the city by nonresidents otherwise, the argument is logically unacceptable.