RC Question 26 Explanation
DISCUSSION: The plan is to shut off water to some houses. It would be better to apply a lien, but an over-specific law prevents this.
The author of passage A would agree that this is a case where a more general law would have been helpful.
___________
- I don’t see why the author would have an opinion on when the plan ought to be put in place.
- CORRECT. I think anyone would agree that it wouldn’t be nice to turn off water to 231,000 just because they were a bit late on their bill. The author of passage A would probably say this wouldn’t be the legislature’s intent.
- The author of passage A would probably say the only reasonable response is to change the law to allow liens for water fees.
- The author would probably agree, though he’s given no opinion on liens. But this course of action isn’t an option. The only plan that would allow this would involve changing the law.
- The author of passage A is against specific laws.
Thanks for your help!
Hi, So I had a question about (B). So in lines 15-18 the author states that enforcing an overinclusive rule on INNOCENT people would have a very bad social cost. I’m having one major problem with this choice, they’re not innocent people! lol I thought (D) was much more proven, I did not think you had to worry about the ramifications of passage B (prevention of this action because on an over specific law) when considering what passage A would prefer.
Lines 14-16 say that overinclusive laws can have heavy social costs and that the effect of these laws would be like punishing masses of innocent people to decrease the probability of acquitting a guilty one. So, the author isn’t quite saying overinclusive laws punish too many innocent people, just that they create undesirable social consequences similar to the one mentioned.
So, if we read these lines carefully, they actually line up quite well with (B). These 230 000 houses aren’t “innocent” in the strictest sense of the term, but to pretty severely punish everyone for missing their water bill payment by a few days is likely far from the intent of water bill regulations.
As for (D), we only really know the author of Passage (A)’s opinion on discretionary non-enforcement and the scope of a law. We’d have to go beyond the passage to say that the author would rather create news laws or new regulations (like the liens plan) then enforce the plan in lines 41-47.