The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette,a local newspaper.
"The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is toadvise the city government on how to make the best use of the city's limitedbudget. However, at some of our recent meetings we failed to make importantdecisions because of the foolish objections raised by committee members who arenot even residents of Oak City. People who work in Oak City but who liveelsewhere cannot fully understand the business and politics of the city. Afterall, only Oak City residents pay city taxes, and therefore only residentsunderstand how that money could best be used to improve the city. We recommend,then, that the Committee for a Better Oak City vote to restrict its membershipto city residents only. We predict that, without the interference ofnon-residents, the committee will be able to make Oak City a better place inwhich to live and work."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to beanswered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have thepredicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions wouldhelp to evaluate the recommendation.
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While it might be true that we should forbid the people who are notresidents in Oak City to vote, the author of this letter doesn't make a cogentinference to validate it. We can easily tell that the limited budget of thiscity should be distributed more effectively and properly, but this argument isrife with holes and weak assumptions. Thus, readers can come up with manyquestions that will weaken or even topple this argument.
By emphasizing the fact that some committee members are only working butnot living in Oak City, the author wants to connect their living elsewhere tothe useless of their decisions about Oak City. But we have to consider theassumption behind this seemingly convincing connection. Since we know that theywork in this city, it's highly probable that they spend even more time thanthey are in other city, to explicit it, they work here and buy things diurnallyhere and only go back home to sleep nocturnally. In this case, they should haverights to determine what should be provided to them in Oak City. To say theleast, even if they consume more in their own city instead of Oak City, it'sstill likely that they have close friends or relatives who are living in thiscity and they are the ones who make Oak residents' voices heard. There are alsoa bunch of other possibilities, but these two are enough to break theconnection built by the author. Unless some further comprehensive informationis provided by the author, the recommendation shouldn't be taken into accountand make a further step.
Likewise, the author cites the evidence that those non-resident membersdon't pay city taxes, this indicates that only residents understand how toallocate that money. This information is quite vague and ambiguous and leads topeople asking questions. How much or what percent of this sum of money are usedto improve living condition rather than working condition? If the fact is that80% of the taxes are used to better working milieu, why shouldn't people onlyliving here to vote? Inversely, number of those working-only people is notenough at status quo. To evaluate and answer questions like it will effectivelyhelp the Committee for a Better Oak City make decisions about those people, andthen a proper revolution will make sense in the city.
Last, the author doesn't consider other factors that will influence thedevelopment of Oak City. Hence, if we admit that the interference made by thosenon-residents per se is the issue we have to consider, the prediction make bythe author which says Oak City will be a better place without them is stillweak. Lack of tourism due to geographical disadvantage may be a reason forcity's depression. Furthermore, policies from the mayor or the sheriff might benot strict enough so that robberies or thefts here are many. It's obvious tosee that up ticks of the city can be efficiently made only by the chief problemis resolved. Therefore, to validate the prediction and improve this argument,the author has to give further explanations which manifest that the votes fromnon-residents are the biggest issue need to be deal with urgently.
An improvement of living and working conditions is no doubt needed for allthe people in this city. Nevertheless, whether we should achieve it by forbiddenof rights to vote of non-residents remains to be scrutinized. In order to makesuch grandiose claims, the author has to provide a lot more information andanswers some questions asked by readers. Otherwise, the argument can be easilyundermined and turned out to be unwarranted. | 
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发表于 2013-1-16 14:15:50
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