A Note and a Half (EOA p.85-90)

To be honest I’m getting a bit annoyed with this assigned book. I think it’s odd to be told how to argue and analyze someone else’s opinions. This may be because I am skeptical of the purpose of English/literature/composition. Besides that the most interesting thing I found out was that truth serum is real. For some reason I didn’t know this. I suppose it’s because I’ve only seen jokes made out of it in cartoons and such. I don’t have my own analysis of the two arguments because that was done for me already. I didn’t completely agree that analysis though. What I understood from the passages wasn’t what the analysis said, but I will assume that’s because I am naïve. As that is true, their analysis confused me but didn’t tempt me to reread those passages.
On another note, I would have to agree with both of the author’s though about the torture rights. There should be a “torture warrant” so that the hypocrisy of it all is some what eliminated. Also, I agree that this warrant would be useless if authorities were to take advantage of the whole matter and commit to illegal torture. My view on torture is bias because I don’t plan on becoming a terrorist and I don’t think I’d ever be suspected of one. With that said, torture of certain people in certain degrees for certain reasons is okay. Yes, that was all quite vague because I’m not sure of my own opinion. Of course, this had not much to do with the reading because the purpose of it was to show us how to analyze an argument and to recognize its organization.
On an ever further note, I am quite fond of the book’s sticking to its own suggestions. I am referring to the footnotes about the authors, which helps with pre-reading procedures that were mentioned in an earlier assignment.