Expert answer:Critical Analyses
Solved by verified expert:Choose one from the four essays in the attachments and write a three pages long critical analyses and evaluate the authors thesis and arguments. use the 5 elements:1)Thesis of essay being analyzed, 2)Author’s propose, 3)author’s methods (logos,pathos), 4)author’s personal tone (ethos), 5)and intended audience *Use your opinion and support it. suggested checklist:1.at or near start, give author’s thesis and propose (and intended audience) 2.Author’s supporting evidence, objections considered (methods) 3. explain own thesis about essay 4. support it
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Against the Odds, and against the Common Good (Student
Essay)
State-run lotteries are now so common — thirty-nine states and Washington, D.C., operate
lotteries — that the states probably will never get out of the lottery business. Still, when all is said
and done about lotteries bringing a bit of excitement into the lives of many people and bringing a
vast amount of money into the lives of a few, the states should not be in the business of urging
people to gamble.
And they do urge people. Consider a slogan used in Maryland, “Play Today. Cash Tomorrow.”
If the statement were, “Get a job today and you will have cash tomorrow,” it would be true; it
would make sense, however small the earnings might be. But “Play Today. Cash Tomorrow”
falsely suggests that the way to have money tomorrow is to buy a ticket today. In fact, buying a
ticket is an almost sure-fire way of getting nothing for something.
Maryland is not the only state that uses a clever slogan to get its citizens to part with hardearned money. New York’s ads say, “You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play,” and Oregon’s ads say,
“There Is No Such Thing as a Losing Ticket.” This last slogan — which at first glance seems to
say that every ticket will benefit the purchaser — is built on the idea that the state’s share of the
money goes to a worthy cause, usually education or some social service. But no matter how you
look at it, this slogan, like the others, urges people to buy a product — a jackpot — that they have
almost no chance of receiving.
The chief arguments in favor of state-run lotteries seem to be these: (1) people freely choose
to participate; (2) funds are used for education or for other important services; (3) if this source of
funding disappears, the states will have to compensate by imposing taxes of one sort or another;
(4) operation by the government ensures that the lotteries are run honestly; and (5) lotteries create
jobs. We can respond briefly to the last two points, and then concentrate on the first three.
5It probably is true that the lotteries are run honestly (though I seem to recall reading in the
newspaper about one state in which corruption was found in administering the lottery), but that is
not the point. If it is wrong to encourage people to gamble, it is hardly relevant to say that the game
is run honestly. The other point that can be dismissed briefly is that lotteries create jobs. This
argument is usually advanced in connection with the creation of casinos, which surely do create
jobs, not only in the casinos but also in nearby restaurants, parking lots, movie theaters, and so
forth. But lottery tickets are sold in places where the clerks are already employed. Presumably the
only new jobs created by the lottery are the relatively few jobs of the people who dream up the
slogans or who are in charge of collecting and processing the receipts.
The three other claims require more attention. The first, that people freely choose to participate,
probably is largely true. Although some buyers are compulsive gamblers, people who are addicted
and therefore cannot really be said to choose freely, I grant that most people do have a free choice
— although, as I have already said, I think that some of the slogans that states use are deceptive,
and if this is the case, purchasers who are misled by the ads are not entirely free. Consider a slogan
that Illinois used on billboards, especially in poor neighborhoods: “This Could Be Your Ticket
Out.” Yes, a person might hit the jackpot and get out of poverty, but the chances are one in several
million, and to imply that the lottery is a reasonable option to get out of present poverty is to be
deceptive. Further, the message is essentially unwholesome. It implies that the way out is luck,
rather than education and hard work. Of course, luck plays a part in life, but 99.99 percent of the
people who rely on the ticket as the “ticket out” of poverty are going to be terribly disappointed.
But again, we can grant that except for gambling addicts, people who buy lottery tickets are freely
doing so.
Probably the strongest claim is that the funds are used for important purposes, usually
education. This claim apparently is true: the legislators are smart enough to package the lottery
bills this way. And the revenue gained seems enormous — $20 billion in 2002, according to
the New York Times (May 18, 2003, sec. 4, p. 1). On the other hand, this amount is only about 4
percent of the total revenue of the states. That is, this amount could be raised by other means,
specifically by taxation, but legislators understandably do not want to be associated with increasing
taxes. And so, again, advocates of state lotteries emphasize the voluntary nature of the lottery: by
buying lottery tickets, they say, people are in effect volunteering to give money to the states, in
exchange for the chance (however remote) of getting a ticket out. Buying a ticket, in this view, is
paying an optional tax; if you don’t want to pay the tax, don’t buy the ticket.
I now get to the point in my argument where I may sound condescending, where I may offend
decent people. The point is this: studies show that most of the tickets are bought by people who
don’t have much money, people who are near the bottom of the economic scale. According to one
study, adults whose income was under $10,000 spent nearly three times as much buying lottery
tickets as did adults who earned $50,000 or more.1 I say that this argument is delicate because
anyone who advances it is liable to be accused of being snobbish and paternalistic, of saying, in
effect, “Poor people don’t know how to manage their money, so we ought to remove temptation
from their eyes.” But such a reply does not get to the central issues: the central issues are (1) that
the state should not tempt people, rich or poor, with dreams of an easy buck and (2) that education
and social services are immensely important to the whole of society, so they should not be
disproportionately financed by the poor and the addicted.
Let me end a bit indirectly. Surely everyone will grant that tobacco is a harmful product. Yes,
it is legal, but everyone knows it is harmful. The state puts very heavy taxes on it, presumably not
to raise revenue but to discourage the use of tobacco. We agree, surely, that it would be almost
criminal if, in an effort to increase its revenues, the state enticed people to smoke — for example,
by posting billboards showing attractive people smoking or cartoon characters that appealed to
children. Would we say, “Oh, well, we need the revenue (from the taxes) to provide services, so
let’s make smoking as attractive as we can to get people to buy cigarettes”? No, we would say,
“People should not smoke, but if they will, well, let’s use the revenue from the taxes for two chief
purposes: to dissuade people from smoking and to treat people who have become ill from
smoking.”
10State legislators who genuinely have the interests of their constituents at heart will not pass
bills that put the state into the lottery business and that cause the state to engage in an activity that
is close to pickpocketing. Rather, they will recognize that, however unpopular taxes are, taxes may
have to be raised to support education and social services that the people rightly expect the state
to provide. It’s against the odds to expect politicians to act this way, but let’s hope that some
politicians will do the right thing and will vote for the common good.
Verna V. Gehring, “The American State Lottery: Sale or Swindle?” Report from the Institute for Philosophy
and Public Policy 20 (Winter/Spring 2000): 15.
1
Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing
1.
Gloria Jiménez omits at least one important argument that advocates of state-run lotteries
sometimes offer: If our state doesn’t run a lottery, residents will simply go to nearby states to buy
tickets, so we will just be losing revenue that other states pick up; poor people will still be spending
money that they can’t afford, and our state will in no way benefit. What do you suppose Jiménez
might say in reply? And what is your own view of this argument?
2.
A bit of humor appears at the end of paragraph 2. Is it appropriate? Or is the essay too
solemn, too preachy? If you think it’s too preachy, cite some sentences, and then revise them to
make them more acceptable.
3.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of this essay? What grade would you give it, and
why? If you were the instructor in a first-year composition course, what comment (three or four
sentences) would you write at the end of the essay?
4.
Jiménez wrote the essay in a composition course. If you were the editor of your college’s
newspaper, might you run it as an op-ed piece? Why, or why not?
JAMES Q. WILSON
James Q. Wilson (1931–2012) was Collins Professor of Management and Public Policy at the
University of California–Los Angeles. Among his books are Thinking about
Crime (1975), Bureaucracy (1989), The Moral Sense (1993), and Moral Judgment (1997). The
essay reprinted here appeared originally in the New York Times Magazine on March 20, 1994.
Just Take Away Their Guns
The president wants still tougher gun control legislation and thinks it will work. The public
supports more gun control laws but suspects they won’t work. The public is right.
Legal restraints on the lawful purchase of guns will have little effect on the illegal use of guns.
There are some 200 million guns in private ownership, about one-third of them handguns. Only
about 2 percent of the latter are employed to commit crimes. It would take a Draconian,1 and
politically impossible, confiscation of legally purchased guns to make much of a difference in the
number used by criminals. Moreover, only about one-sixth of the handguns used by serious
criminals are purchased from a gun shop or pawnshop. Most of these handguns are stolen,
borrowed, or obtained through private purchases that wouldn’t be affected by gun laws.
What is worse, any successful effort to shrink the stock of legally purchased guns (or of
ammunition) would reduce the capacity of law-abiding people to defend themselves. Gun control
advocates scoff at the importance of self-defense, but they are wrong to do so. Based on a
household survey, Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, has estimated that every
year, guns are used — that is, displayed or fired — for defensive purposes more than a million
times, not counting their use by the police. If his estimate is correct, this means that the number of
people who defend themselves with a gun exceeds the number of arrests for violent crimes and
burglaries.
Our goal should not be the disarming of law-abiding citizens. It should be to reduce the number
of people who carry guns unlawfully, especially in places — on streets, in taverns — where the
mere presence of a gun can increase the hazards we all face. The most effective way to reduce
illegal gun-carrying is to encourage the police to take guns away from people who carry them
without a permit. This means encouraging the police to make street frisks.
5The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution bans “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In
1968 the Supreme Court decided (Terry v. Ohio) that a frisk — patting down a person’s outer
clothing — is proper if the officer has a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is armed and
dangerous. If a pat-down reveals an object that might be a gun, the officer can enter the suspect’s
pocket to remove it. If the gun is being carried illegally, the suspect can be arrested.
The reasonable-suspicion test is much less stringent than the probable-cause standard the
police must meet in order to make an arrest. A reasonable suspicion, however, is more than just a
hunch; it must be supported by specific facts. The courts have held, not always consistently, that
these facts include someone acting in a way that leads an experienced officer to conclude criminal
activity may be afoot; someone fleeing at the approach of an officer; a person who fits a drug
courier profile; a motorist stopped for a traffic violation who has a suspicious bulge in his pocket;
a suspect identified by a reliable informant as carrying a gun. The Supreme Court has also upheld
frisking people on probation or parole.
Some police departments frisk a lot of people, but usually the police frisk rather few, at least
for the purpose of detecting illegal guns. In 1992 the police arrested about 240,000 people for
illegally possessing or carrying a weapon. This is only about one-fourth as many as were arrested
for public drunkenness. The average police officer will make no weapons arrests and
confiscate no guns during any given year. Mark Moore, a professor of public policy at Harvard
University, found that most weapons arrests were made because a citizen complained, not because
the police were out looking for guns.
It is easy to see why. Many cities suffer from a shortage of officers, and even those with ample
law-enforcement personnel worry about having their cases thrown out for constitutional reasons
or being accused of police harassment. But the risk of violating the Constitution or engaging in
actual, as opposed to perceived, harassment can be substantially reduced.
Each patrol officer can be given a list of people on probation or parole who live on that officer’s
beat and be rewarded for making frequent stops to insure that they are not carrying guns. Officers
can be trained to recognize the kinds of actions that the Court will accept as providing the
“reasonable suspicion” necessary for a stop and frisk. Membership in a gang known for assaults
and drug dealing could be made the basis, by statute or Court precedent, for gun frisks.
10The available evidence supports the claim that self-defense is a legitimate form of deterrence.
People who report to the National Crime Survey that they defended themselves with a weapon
were less likely to lose property in a robbery or be injured in an assault than those who did not
defend themselves. Statistics have shown that would-be burglars are threatened by gun-wielding
victims about as many times a year as they are arrested (and much more often than they are sent
to prison) and that the chances of a burglar being shot are about the same as his chances of going
to jail. Criminals know these facts even if gun control advocates do not and so are less likely to
burgle occupied homes in America than occupied ones in Europe, where the residents rarely have
guns.
Some gun control advocates may concede these points but rejoin that the cost of self-defense
is self-injury: Handgun owners are more likely to shoot themselves or their loved ones than a
criminal. Not quite. Most gun accidents involve rifles and shotguns, not handguns. Moreover, the
rate of fatal gun accidents has been declining while the level of gun ownership has been rising.
There are fatal gun accidents just as there are fatal car accidents, but in fewer than 2 percent of the
gun fatalities was the victim someone mistaken for an intruder.
Those who urge us to forbid or severely restrict the sale of guns ignore these facts. Worse, they
adopt a position that is politically absurd. In effect, they say, “Your government, having failed to
protect your person and your property from criminal assault, now intends to deprive you of the
opportunity to protect yourself.”
Opponents of gun control make a different mistake. The National Rifle Association and its
allies tell us that “guns don’t kill, people kill” and urge the Government to punish more severely
people who use guns to commit crimes. Locking up criminals does protect society from future
crimes, and the prospect of being locked up may deter criminals. But our experience with meting
out tougher sentences is mixed. The tougher the prospective sentence the less likely it is to be
imposed, or at least to be imposed swiftly. If the Legislature adds on time for crimes committed
with a gun, prosecutors often bargain away the add-ons; even when they do not, the judges in many
states are reluctant to impose add-ons.
Worse, the presence of a gun can contribute to the magnitude of the crime even on the part of
those who worry about serving a long prison sentence. Many criminals carry guns not to rob stores
but to protect themselves from other armed criminals. Gang violence has become more threatening
to bystanders as gang members have begun to arm themselves. People may commit crimes, but
guns make some crimes worse. Guns often convert spontaneous outbursts of anger into fatal
encounters. When some people carry them on the streets, others will want to carry them to protect
themselves, and an urban arms race will be under way.
15And modern science can be enlisted to help. Metal detectors at airports have reduced the
number of airplane bombings and skyjackings to nearly zero. But these detectors only work at very
close range. What is needed is a device that will enable the police to detect the presence of a large
lump of metal in someone’s pocket from a distance of ten or fifteen feet. Receiving such a signal
could supply the officer with reasonable grounds for a pat-down. Underemployed nuclear
physicists and electronics engineers in the post-cold-war era surely have the talents for designing
a better gun detector.
Even if we do all these things, there will still be complaints. Innocent people will be stopped.
Young black and Hispanic men will probably be stopped more often than older white Anglo males
or women of any race. But if we are serious about reducing drive-by shootings, fatal gang wars
and lethal quarrels in public places, we must get illegal guns off the street. We cannot do this by
multiplying the forms one fills out at gun shops or by pretending that guns are not a problem until
a criminal uses one.
1
Draconian Harsh or severe, often excessively so. [Editors’ note.]
Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing
1.
If you had to single out one sentence in James Wilson’s essay that best states his thesis,
what sentence would that be? Why do you think it states, better than any other sentence, the
essay’s thesis?
2.
In paragraph 3, Wilson reviews research by a criminologist purporting to show that guns are
important for self-defense in American households. Does the research as reported show that
displaying or firing guns in self-defense actually prevented crimes? Or wounded aggressors?
Suppose you were also told that in households where guns may be used defensively, thousands of
innocent people are injured and hundreds are killed — for instance, children who find a loaded gun
and play with it. Would you regard these injuries and deaths as a fair trade-off? Explain. What does
the research presented by Wilson really show?
3.
In an essay of no more than 100 words, explain the difference between the “reasonablesuspicion” test (para. 5) and the “probable-cause standard” (para. 6) that the courts use in deciding
whether a street frisk is lawful. (You may want to organize your essay into two paragraphs, one on
each topic, or perhaps into three if you include a brief introductory paragraph.)
4.
Wilson reports in paragraph 7 that the police arrest four times as many drunks on the streets
as they do people carrying unlicensed firearms. Does this strike you as absurd, reasonable, or
mysterious? Does Wilson explain it to your satisfaction? Why, or why not?
5.
In paragraph 12, Wilson says that people who want to severely restrict the ownership of guns
are in effect saying, “‘Your government, having failed to protect your person and your property from
criminal assault, now intends to deprive you of the opportunity to protect yourself.’” What reply might
an advocate of severe restrictions make? (Even if you strongly believe Wilson’s summary is
accurate, put yourself in the shoes of …
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