In the first stage of the "informed citizen" analysis, it is important to examine whether the rhetoric is making a major claim on attitudes, values, or beliefs. In the CSDP advertisement, the answer is most definitely yes. Most Americans believe that the drug war is an important issue and that strict laws are necessary to prevent drug use. A study in the American Family Physician shows that there has been in increase in drug use in U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 21, and that parents believe stricter laws are needed to curb the growing problem (Kirchner, 1266). Furthermore, the advertisement deals with Constitutional rights, which all Americans value greatly. The Journal o

The second issue to examine in the "informed citizen" system is whether the rhetor is presenting the material in a strategic fashion. The rhetor certainly does this in the CSDP article by presenting Americans' Constitutional rights in one column, and then presenting laws that have been passed that violate these rights in another column. This is done to persuade the reader that restrictive laws on drugs are violating their Constitutional rights.

A third weakness of the rhetoric is that the reasoning doesn't lead to the conclusion. The reasoning of the article states that the U.S. is passing strict drug laws, and the conclusion is that by doing this the U.S. government is stripping American citizens of their Constitutional rights. The evidence provided is various rulings in court cases and laws that restrict American's rights. However, the reasoning doesn't "link" the evidence to the conclusion. In only two out of six examples in the "Rights lost" column is there the mention of the word drug. In one of the two, the law is titled "The National Defense Authorization Act". One can obviously see that these examples of "Rights lost" having nothing to do with the war on drugs, but rather involved individual cases that had nothing to do with drugs. The rhetoric is drawing a conclusion from evidence that is not specifically focused on the war on drugs and therefore the reasoning couldn't possibly lead to the conclusion of th!

The third step in the "informed citizen" analysis is to determine whether the rhetor makes a strong case and provides strong reasons which validate the conclusion. In the CSDP advertisement, though the rhetor provides evidence for every claim being made, the evidence does not meet the tests of evidence to make it valid. Furthermore, the reasoning doesn't lead to the conclusion and there are counter-examples which suggest that in fact people's Constitutional rights are often upheld by the nation's courts.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1891
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)