muggle baiting vs. muggle torture

[Jordan Abel]

No: HPFGUIDX 155250

> jennathasania83:
>  Respectfully, I think that we have strayed. My point was not that Dudley is
> incapable of defending himself in some way, but that by using magic the
> Twins *are* muggle baiting, and are thus being bullies - which by definition
> usually implies picking on someone who is weaker in some way.

Random832:
The term "picking on someone" generally isn't applied to 'revenge'
against a bully, and I don't see how this is any different, other than
the bare fact that magic is used.

> This does NOT
> negate that Dudley himself is a bully, *but* Dudley's being a bully doesn't
> make what the Twins are doing something other than muggle baiting.

I think it does - if someone defends himself against a bully with
martial arts, is that "non-martial-artist baiting"?

> Although
> i'm pretty sure that no matter what I say, it won't change your mind. If the
> DEs beat Muggles up rather than using magic, it still would be wrong, but
> perhaps it would no longer be Muggle baiting. Anyways, the issue was
> whether
> or not the Twins were Muggle baiting, which I see as tormenting a Muggle in
> some way with magic.

"tormenting" is the element that I think does not apply here.

> That is why magic is being treated as a special case.
>
>
>
> Random832:
> > And casting the former as the latter is moral relativism of the worst
> > kind. Using an analogy that comes just short of explicitly claiming
> > that the Dursleys' treatment of Harry was something that the twins
> > merely disapproved of is disingenuous at best.
>
>
>
> jennathasania83:
> Even if  the Dursleys killed Harry it doesn't make it morally okay for the
> Twins to do whatever they want to Dudley (or the Dursleys), IMO. That just
> becomes revenge, in my mind similar to those endless cycles of violence in
> blood feuds. No one is saying that what Harry was subjected to isn't wrong.
> However, in my mind the Twins, and a lot of other people, are rather scary
> because it seems to me that they think that there is some absolute line
> after which one crosses anything is fair game; and for the twins it seems
> that this line lies with whether they approve of you in some way or not.
>
> Also, I think that someone made the point before that none of the Dursleys
> knew that Dudley wasn't going to die, in fact if I recall correctly the
> Twins themselves were in awe of the size to which Dudley's tongue swelled.

Which clearly disproves intent, at least to some degree.

And anyway, my point here was not only A) no-one died but also B)
no-one tried to kill anyone. There's no such crime as attempted
involuntary homicide.

> I
> think that inspiring a lot of fear in a person *is* baiting, the extreme
> example of course is death - which as you pointed out did not happen - but
> just because no one died doesn't make it *not* baiting, or okay. My point
> was that: the Twins used magic, which Dudley can't do, to torment him in
> some fashion - and in my mind this is Muggle baiting. Perhaps my examples
> were too extreme as they were clearly jumped upon and my point passed up.
> What he or his family did is completely irrelevant, in my mind, to
> determining whether or not this is Muggle baiting.

Endorsing the use of a term like "muggle baiting" at all for something
like this requires the implicit assumption that magic is somehow
"unique".

Random832