Argument177 【0706G－LOVEAW小组】第17次作业

小猫儿UID: 2297873

177.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."

1、  既然在OC工作就会对这又一定的了解，尤其是政治和经济
2、  不付城市税也可以指导如何才能促进城市发展，由于没有主观立场的干扰，观点反而可能更客观
3、  EC情况是否适用于OC，也许其外地人少而OC则多

It is recommended that membership in Oak City’s Civic Club be restricted to people who live in Oak City on basis of a series of doubtful reasoning.

The first assumption in the argument that people who do not live in Oak City have no idea of political and economical conditions there is not well reasoned. Although they do not live in Oak City, since they are working here they must have some knowledge about it. It is possible that some of them are working for the government of Oak City, which endows them with the duty to keep their attention on the city’s construction. It is also possible that some of them work as a economical critics who are perfectly familiar the economical conditions in Oak City, which makes them be able to give profound and useful suggestions once allowed in the discuss of local issues. Without ruling out these possibilities, the arguer can not convince me to accept the assumption that people who are not living here are sure not to have any knowledge about its political and economical conditions.

Secondly, there is another suspect assumption that people who do not pay city taxes will not help with the development of the city. As is known to all, when our interests are associated in the issue, we will not tend to give subjective decisions. However, interests of people who do not pay city taxes are not involved in the issues discussed in Oak City, which suggests that they can provide more subjective suggestions that are more favorable for the development of Oak City. Taking such cases into consideration, it can not be accepted to exclude the people who are not living in Oak City from the discussion of local issues on basis of this assumption.

In addition, the argument lacks detailed information to prove that Oak City is similar as Elm City which indicates that experience in Elm City can be taken into consideration in the process of making decisions in Oak City. Although only twenty-five of nonresidents of Elm City took part in the Elm City’s club, it does not necessarily follow that few nonresidents in Oak City would do this either. It is possible that there were very few nonresidents in Elm City which leads to the small amount of them in the club. Also, chances are nonresidents in Elm City happened to be uninterested in the political issues. However, nonresidents in Oak City may be a large population, among whom many are interested in the discussion of the city’s issues. Without providing the detailed information about nonresidents of each city, I can not accept the comparison between the two city.

To sum up, the argument lends little support to its final conclusion.