environment of the chimpanzee is in danger, and its health is also at risk. For forests

are being cleared to make way for cultivation; food trees are being poisoned to make 

way for timber trees; moreover, since chimps are susceptible to all the infectious 

diseases of man, the apes are endangered by epidemics anytime their populations are

near new human settlements. 

2) There are over 12 million pot smokers in the U.S. today, even though smoking pot

is illegal just about everywhere in the country.  Thus, more than 12 million people

regularly decide, in effect, that it is better to break the law than not to.  It is simply 

impossible to have fair enforcement of laws which are broken regularly by that many

citizens.  And laws which can't be properly enforced ought to be repealed, because

unenforced laws create a general disrespect for other laws, and such a situation is 

contrary to the best interests of society.  These considerations show why the use of 

marijuana ought to be decriminalized. 

3) In recent years many supermarkets and shopping centers have begun selling shrubs 

and trees.  This development has helped hold down the cost of buying plants, but 

overall home gardeners are not well served by these outlets.  To begin with, the 

salespersons working in them don't know much about gardening, and, since they 

usually commute long distances to work, they know even less about local growing 

conditions.  So you're rarely going to get any good gardening advice from them.  In

the second place, the selection of plants offered by these outlets tends to be extremely

limited.  Finally, the plants are never of high quality and they are not well adapted to 

local conditions. 

4) Land erosion is a bigger problem today in the U.S. than it was in the past. In the 

past, much of our potential farmland was not actually put into production; but today 

almost all of it is being farmed. Land which is ploughed erodes more quickly than 

land that isn't ploughed. These facts show why erosion is so much more serious today

than it used to be.

5)  Free immigration to the U.S. before 1914 benefitted the immigrants who came

here, and it also benefitted the people already here. The immigrants benefitted 

because their new standard of living was higher than it had been in the countries they

came from. Those already here benefitted because the immigrants provided 

additional labor and markets for U. S. industry. 

6)  I knew that you had recently come here from Afghanistan by means of a long 

series of thoughts which ran so swiftly through my mind that I was barely conscious

of them.  But I will summarize the steps in my reasoning for you.  You are a British 

gentleman who obviously is very knowledgeable about medicine, but you have the

mannerisms of a military man.  You are, therefore, an army doctor.  You have

recently arrived in England from the tropics, for your face is dark, and that is not the

natural color of your skin, since you are light-skinned around the wrists.  You have 

suffered hardship and sickness, for your face is haggard and worn.  Your left arm has 

been injured, because you hold it in a stiff and unnatural way.  Now where in the 

tropics could an English army doctor have seen hardship and sickness, and gotten his

arm wounded?  Most likely in Afghanistan, for that is the only place where the 

British army is currently engaged in military action.  This whole train of thought took

only a fraction of a second. (from A. Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet)