You essentially changed the definition of "value" to mean what is just called "name" in Python.

Names refer to objects. Names are introduced by name binding operations such as `=`, `import`, `def`.

  def f(a, b):  # a, b - local variables
       a = [1]  # doesn't change  x list; a refers to the new list hence forth
       b.append(2)  # change y list; b refers to the same list as y

  x, y = [], []
  f(x, y)
  print x, y  # [], [2]

Note: a "win" doesn't change the truth. It just means that nobody cared enough to participate further in the hostile discussion.