Political theorist: Newly enacted laws

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Evidence Match8% picked this

   Whether a law should be retained is independent of what the voters think its

   The author is concluding that a law should be retained through the initial painful period, so the language of this principle seems relevant. But the author's evidence was saying, "let's retain the new law through the painful period, because it takes a while for people to learn how to benefit from it" whereas this answer says "... because it doesn't matter what voters think the consequences will be." That's not a good match. Also, this rule only tells you that "what voters think" is irrelevant. It doesn't actually point us in any direction of whether a law should or shouldn't be retained.

   8%
2. B

   Correct56% picked this

   Whether a law should be retained depends primarily on the long-term consequences

   Why this is right

   The author is concluding that a law should be retained through the initial painful period, so the language of this principle seems relevant. There's short term pain, while the long-term benefits are obscure. Should we ditch this new law? How do we weigh these tradeoffs? This answer says that the potential long-term benefits are the primary way we decide whether to retain or ditch the new law, so this answer supports the author's conclusion that we should stick out this initial painful period to see if long-term benefits materialize.

   Skill tested: Principle-Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   56%
3. C

   Bad Evidence Match3% picked this

   The repeal of a law should be at least as difficult as the passage

   The language is somewhat relevant to our conclusion, since our author's conclusion wants to give new laws a period of immunity. Our author wants to make repeal pretty difficult in the short term. But the reason offered for doing so has to do with the idea that "it takes a while for long-term benefits to come into focus", whereas this answer acts like the reason offered was that "it was really difficult to pass the law".

   3%
4. D

   Bad Evidence Match14% picked this

   The short-term consequences of a law’s repeal should be considered more carefully than the short-term

   This answer would only work if the author had said, "We should be careful about repealing a newly enacted law, just because of the initial short term pain. After all, the consequences of repealing the law could be even worse than the consequences of passing it." Instead, the author was saying "We should be careful about repealing too soon just because of initial short term pain. After all, there might be long-term benefit to the passage that we just haven't grasped yet."

   14%
5. E

   Bad Conclusion Match20% picked this

   The long-term consequences of the enactment of a law should be more beneficial than

   This is a principle about how the law should be written in the first place. It wouldn't have any power to counsel us on what we should do if a newly enacted law is causing short-term pain ... should we retain or not? There's no language in this principle to address that question.

   20%