argument177 by yzl_1988[April小组]

yzl_1988UID: 2372248

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: 404          TIME: 00:40:00          DATE: 2008-4-10 下午 04:39:03


The arguer makes a conclusion in this passage that membership in Oak City's Civic Club should continue to be restricted to people who live in Oak City. To adjust his conclusion he says that only residents pay taxes and understand how the money could best be used. In addition, he concludes that it is unlikely to disappoint the nonresidents employed in Oak City, by citing the situation on Elm City, which is nearby. In my point of view, the conclusion is unconvincing by the flaws below.

Foremost, I can not see why nonresidents who were employed can not truly understand the business and politics of the city. They might be grown up in this city, and just live around for cheaper housing. How much more will a resident know about the city compared to one who born and live in the city for a long time. Even if nonresidents are not grown up in this city, they worked there and they must know the business and politics of the city to get their job. Furthermore, they pay taxes as the residents do. So, I can not understand why nonresidents can not know this city but the residents can. I even think that the nonresidents have something superior. They live in a different city and know that city, so they will give some advice about good policies used by the city they live in.  That is defiantly increase the efficiency of money spend to improve our city.

In addition, I do not think the situation in Elm City will prove that it is unlikely to disappoint many of the nonresidents employed in Oak City. The arguer does not tell how many people attend Elm City's Civic Club in the last ten years. It is possible that the numbers of people attend Elm City's Club is just above fifty. In this case, twenty-five will be a half, thus a force should not be ignored. Even if the “twenty-five” consists only a small part, you can not know what will happen when the nonresidents were excluded from the City Club. So, the arguer should give us a percentage of that twenty-five and convince us that exclude the small part from club will not lead to disappoint of nonresidents.

In sum, the conclusion of the arguer is unconvincing by many flaws. To better support his conclusion, more details and more rational reasons should be given in the argument.