The author is silently switching between two definitions of "argument" depending on which point he's trying to make. An argument with a toddler is about whether they should brush their teeth, put their toys away, or stop sending American citizens to El Salvadorian prison camps. You win the argument if they do those things. And you can win some of those arguments, by ethos, pathos, logos, deal-making, bribery, or force.
That's not the same kind of argument where people are trying to change their minds. Those are the ones you can't win or lose, because "changing your mind" is not black and white. I've had plenty of arguments where my understanding changed by a few inches, and their understanding changed by a few inches, but we were still far apart in our opinions. That's fine! That's a successful argument.
The author's world is one where there are two takes on every topic and one person is arguing Black and the other is arguing White and you should flip to the other binary sometimes when you're wrong. No. If your opinions are regularly flipping from one binary to the other, then your opinions suck. The world is much more complicated than that. Opinions are much more contextual than that. I'm never going to switch from "evolution is real" to "all life was custom-built by God" after a conversation with one person -- no matter how persuasive they are -- because my belief that evolution is real is not that fragile. It's intertwined with all my other understandings about how the world works, and I can't just flip it independently of other things. My goal when I have an argument is to improve my understanding of the world just a little bit, even if it's merely "why do people believe this shit?" If the person I'm arguing with isn't trying to do the same, they're the only one that's losing.
>stop sending American citizens
the person who was sent, and who should not have been sent, was a Salvadoran citizen and a legal resident alien of the US.
Please refrain from hyperbole in these times. If/when US citizens start getting sent to prison camps, we need to be able to tell each other that it is happening, and if you cry wolf now, nobody will believe you when it does actually happen.
It is bad enough that it happened to a legal alien. It's more important than ever that we be precise.
I disagree with this perspective because this case had a really obvious and flagrant violation of due process. The planes were in El Salvador before the courts had determined his citizenship/resident status.
It's moot that he wasn't a citizen because the response to it happening to a legal alien suggests that, if this happened to a citizen, the administration would claim that it is impossible to return him while Bukele talks about how absurd it would be to smuggle terrorists into the US, all while people are arguing over whether or not he's even a citizen, let alone what crimes he committed to justify detention and deportation in the first place.
Do you mean Abrego Garcia? What's your source that he is "a legal resident alien" ?
This says he is illegal and shouldn't have been here in the first place: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/04/14/icymi-dhs-sets-record-st...
Or is there another person?
He entered the US illegally when he was 16 but was granted a "withholding of removal" status by the judicial branch. He had no contact with law enforcement since then, aside from his annual check-ins with ICE. The Supreme Court unanimously concluded that he was deported illegally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_G...
A judge granted him ‘withholding of removal’ status, and SCOTUS has determined his removal unlawful.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-wants-deport-so...
Nothing is hyperbole with Trump. "He hasn't done that yet" is the refrain from every Trump-apologist right up until he does the thing. This cycle has happened dozens of times.
To argue that someone should stop doing something implies that they already are doing that.
So your gripe is that my theoretical argument could be happening in the future, or that you have to change "citizen" to "legal resident", or that you have to change "stop" to "don't", or that you have to substitute it for any of literally dozens of abhorrent Trump policies? And that's why my point is invalid? Trump has openly stated that he wants to send American citizens to El Salvadorian prison camps, and I'm being completely unreasonable in imagining arguing against that?