Argument177 【Persistence 小组】第24次作业

iamstoicUID: 2294314

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: 393          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2007-2-23

In this letter, the author recommends that Membership in Oak City's Civic Club continue to be limited to residents based on the assumption that only residents who pay city taxes can truly understand the business and politics of that city. Additionally, the author cites the evidence that only twenty-five nonresidents have participated in neighboring Elm City's Club in the last ten years, and therefore he/she supposes that many of the nonresidents working in Oak City will not be disappointed at the restricted membership. A close scrutiny will reveal how groundless the conclusion is.

In the first place, nonresidents do not pay city taxes, but it does not necessarily indicate that it is the residents, not the nonresidents, who can understand truly and discuss local issues - be it business or politics. It is entirely possible that some nonresidents also concern themselves with the local issues and understand well how the money could best be used to improve the city. It is might be the case that some residents who pay city taxes are not interested in the local issues because they think how the money could be employed is up to the local government. Without ruling out such possibilities, the author cannot persuade me to take his/her recommendations seriously.

In the second place, the author assumes that restricting membership in this way is unlikely to disappoint the majority of the nonresidents worked in Oak City because the minority of the nonresidents have joined neighboring Elm City's Club. However this might not be the case since the Civic Club in Oak City is probably different from that in Elm City and nonresidents in these two cities are not necessarily similar. Perhaps many of the nonresidents employed in Oak City would want to join the Civic Club which may offer more appealing services than do the Club in Elm City. In short, this letter does not take into account the possibility that the two places are of different situations, therefore the author's conclusion is unconvincing.

In the final analysis, the argument lacks credibility because the evidence cited in it does not lend strong support to what the arguer concludes. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide more evidence serving to show that only residents can truly understand the local issues and the nonresidents will not be disappointed at this restricted membership policy.