Skateboarding

David Langley uses similar arguing techniques as Michael Levin. He provides sitations in which most people would have to aggree with him, but also makes some assumptions that others may not share.

In the first line of paragraph 9, Langley writes, "Of course, most adults probably don't think skateboarders deserve to be treated fairly." Although there may be some adults who believe this, for most that wouldn't be a conscious opinion. The primary concern on the adults' minds would probably be saftey, for both the skater and other pedestrians. Langley does not once acknowledge safety outside of his descriptions of skate parks. Something that weakens his argument is the fact that he has made the assumption that the only reason adults object to skateboarding is because they think all skaters are "half-criminals."

When describing the benefits that skating brings to society, he writes based on the assumption that all skaters will use their boards as foremost main form of transportation. Yes, skateboarding is cleaner than driving a car, but perhaps the person will only use his skateboard when practicing. If he uses his car at all other times, he's not done any good for the enviornment.

Like Levin, Langley twists the argument to show how the only bad guy is the person who disaggrees with him. In the last paragraph, he writes, "Here's how cities can treat us fairly." This implies that the cities are the only ones who need to improve. He completely ignores the fact that skaters can be responsible for damage, too. What makes his argument stronger than Levin's is that he used a real, personal situation rather than a hypothetical one. He was able to reason that the cities have a need to change now, where Levin writes that there may be a future sitution in which torture may be a feasible course of action.