I'm thouroughly confused by your question, can you clarify a bit? Mainly, I don't know what your argument is, and what the "tax guy's" argument is. Let me try to just give you some facts rather than answering a question I can't figure out.
Long-Term Capital Gains are income and they are taxed at capital gains tax rates, not ordinary rates. The long-term capital gain rate is either 0% (for the 10-15% brackets) or 15% (for the 25-35% tax brackets) or 20% for the 39.6% bracket. This doesn't include the new medicare tax for investments, but that's only for AGI > $250K so you likely don't have to worry about that.
Short-Term Capital Gains are income and they are taxed at ordinary tax rates, so whatever bracket you are in, that's your tax rate.