ARGUMENT7 【0906G Fight 3月中~4月初队】by oscarshu

oscarshu1985UID: 2537369

TOPIC: ARGUMENT7 - The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Clearview newspaper.

"In the next mayoral election, residents of Clearview should vote for Ann Green, who is a member of the Good Earth Coalition, rather than for Frank Braun, a member of the Clearview town council, because the current members are not protecting our environment. For example, during the past year the number of factories in Clearview has doubled, air pollution levels have increased, and the local hospital has treated 25 percent more patients with respiratory illnesses. If we elect Ann Green, the environmental problems in Clearview will certainly be solved."
WORDS: 419
TIME: 00:30:00
DATE: 2009-3-4 15:33:16

The argument tries to persuade that the people in Clearview should vote for Ann Green, a member of the Good Earth Coalition, rather than another candidate, Frank Braun , who is a member of the current town council. However, too many flaws which can be easily found with a close investigation undermine the standpoint of the arguer and make the argument senseless and logically unacceptable.

First of all, the examples the arguer cited don't necessarily substantiate the hypothesis that current members are not protecting the environment. For instance, the doubled factories don't necessarily worsen the environment , on the contrary, it is likely that they are environment-friendly factories such as the waterworks and garbage recycling. So there is also no compelling evidence to support that the increase of air pollution levels and the 25 percent more patients with respiratory illnesses is related with the increase of factories. Without more direct evidence we can easily blame the increased factories.

Meanwhile, even if we concede the factories polluted the Clearview more in the past year, it doesn't mean the members of town council don't protect the environment. Perhaps, the speed of the increase has slowed down after the endeavors of the members, for instance, the air pollution increased more the year before last year when there was a 30 percent increase of patient with respiratory illnesses. Without data to compare a continuing facts during past years, we can not assure that
the members are not protecting environment. Further, even granted that the town council didn't succeed in environment protection, we still don't know how Frank Braun a person is. Perhaps he tried his best to protect the environment, but didn't success since he was just small position then.

Moreover, one more fatal flaw is that the arguer doesn't provide any background and information about Ann Green. The fact she is a member of the Good Earth Coalition can't guarantee her environmental achievement in the future. After all, we haven't any information what the Good Earth Coalition did for environment.

Finally, the election of a mayor can not merely determined by environment achievement. Even though it's an important factor to consider, numerous other elements like the performance of candidates in finance, education, fundamental construction must be considered.

In sum, since the argument is lack of cogent reasoning and compelling evidences to forge a convincible conclustion,we don't have sufficient reasons to the trust the statement of the arguer. Because of those obvious flaws and suspicions in the argument, we can even suspect the political purpose of the statement.