The following passage is a letter to the editor responding to a previous letter supporting the right of the Amish not to attend high school. I would like to answer those misguided persons who have so eloquently defended the Amish people regarding their recent trouble with the law. I agree that pictures of people who have broken the law being marched off to jail is not pretty. But I would also like to remind your readers that freedom of religion gives no one the right to flout or break existing law. If it can be proven that our present laws are bad with regard to the higher education of American citizens, let them be changed. But until that is done, let no law abiding , God fearing Amish or anyone else disobey them. Laws are made for the good of all whether or not these people, through ignorance or stupidity, know it. Let s remember, too, that these same laws were recently defended by other loyal Americans at great cost, but with little support from the Amish and others of their ilk . No Amish son died upon the battlefield. No Amish child must ask his mother why his soldier father never returned from the war. People like these who refused to fight for their rights have little to complain about when we must force them to obey our laws, bought and delivered at the cost of loyal American lives. I am quite sure they would be the first to impose their laws upon us should the shoe be on the other foot. If you question this, ask anyone who has lived in a community where their influence is strong. They are law abiding people until they chose to act otherwise as witness their disgraceful actions in recent weeks. By these they have again proved what basically poor excuses for Americans they are.
1. What is the issue?
2. What is the conclusion?
3. Identify two reasons.
4. Identify two ambiguous terms or phrases.
5. What is the value conflict?
6. What is the descriptive assumption?
7. Identify two fallacies in reasoning and name them.
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Introduction: The given passage is a letter to the editor which responds to another letter that supported the right of Amish people to not attend high school. The writer expresses their disagreement with the previous letter and supports the idea that no one can flout or break existing laws, even if they are based on religious beliefs.
1. The issue is the conflict between the right to freedom of religion and the obligation to abide by existing laws, specifically in this case, the compulsory education law.
2. The conclusion is that no one has the right to disobey existing laws, even if they believe it goes against their religious beliefs. Also, the writer believes that the Amish, who refuse to fight for their rights and have little regard for loyal Americans who have fought for these rights, are poor excuses for Americans.
3. Two reasons given by the writer are that laws are made for the good of all, and that loyal Americans have fought for these laws at great cost.
4. Two ambiguous terms or phrases are “disobey them,” which could refer to either the laws or the religious beliefs, and “bought and delivered,” which could have different connotations depending on the context.
5. The value conflict is between individual freedom of religious beliefs and the greater good of society as a whole, represented by the existing laws.
6. The descriptive assumption is that the Amish people are law-abiding until they choose to act otherwise, insinuating that their recent actions were disgraceful and not in line with being law-abiding.
7. Two fallacies in reasoning are appeal to emotion, where the writer references soldiers who have died and families who have suffered to gain sympathy for their argument, and ad hominem attack, where the writer belittles the Amish people by calling them poor excuses for Americans.
