argument177

蔓草菊UID: 2195399

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."

In this letter, the arguer recommends that membership in Oak City's Civic Club whose primary objective is to discuss local issues should continue to be restricted to the local residents. To support this recommendation, the arguer assumes that employees who live elsewhere and work in Oak City (OC) cannot understand the business and politics of the city while residents who pay city taxes can understand how the money could be best used to improve the city so they can truly understand the business and politics of the city. In addition, the arguer also points out Elm City's Civic Club (EC) with an open membership policy has only 25% nonresidents in the last ten years alluding that the restricted policy is unlikely to disappoint many nonresidents. The letter suffers a series of poor assumptions which render it wholly unpersuasive as it stands

To begin with, the arguer unfairly assumes that employees who live out of OC cannot truly understand the local business and politics. However, the arguer provides no evidence to substantiate that. It is possible that some employees have investigated OC well and knew all aspects of it before they decide to work there while some residents only concerning their interests pay no attention to the business and politics of the city. So the claim that nonresidents cannot understand the city well is unconvincing.

Furthermore, the arguer bases his recommendation on the assumption that residents paying for city taxes can understand how the money could best be used to improve the city. Admittedly, residents who pay for taxes may concern more about how the money to be used, but that does not mean that every resident tax-payer will concern about business and politics of the city. Perhaps some residents only consider paying taxes to be a routine procedure and after paying the tax they will still be indifferent with what is happening in their city. On the contrary, maybe some nonresidents studying the urban planning are employed to work in the city and they may know how to make the best use of the money from local residents.

Finally, the arguer points out EC’s club nearby OC has only 25% nonresidents joining it alluding that if we refuse nonresidents to enter OC’ s club nonresidents will still not complaint with the decision. However, the arguer overlooks the difference between the OC and EC. Maybe, OC has a high percentage of out-comings who are employed in the city while the majority of people in EC are residents. If this is the case, when OC’ s club also has 25% nonresidents it may seem to be high and it may means that OC’ s club is polular among nonresidents to some extend. In addition, the 25% may be due to the high fee for entering EC's club so it does not necessarily indicate that nonresidents are not enthusiastic in clubs discussing the business and politics of OC. Therefore, the arguer cannot prove that nonresidents are unlikely to disappoint with the restricted membership.

In sum, the letter is not credible and the evidence cited in it lends little support to what the arguer want to maintain. To strengthen the recommendation, the arguer would have to provide more clear evidence that nonresidents cannot truly understand the business and politics of OC and residents can. To evaluate the recommendation more fairly we need to know more information about the demography of both OC and EC and the entering fee of EC' club.