muggle baiting vs. muggle torture

[PJ]

No: HPFGUIDX 155334

> Magpie:
> Whatever we call it, I'm one of those Muggles who isn't 
comfortable 
> giving Wizard's a blank check to whip out the wands to discipline 
me 
> (and anyone who'd grant that power over themselves to the Twins, 
> who've never even pretended to not be self-interested first, is a 
> fool).

PJ:
I wouldn't be comfortable with that either but that's not exactly 
what is going on in that scene... At least not the way I read it.  
What is happening is that they are, as usual, playing a *joke* on 
someone (a nasty joke but a joke nonetheless) but this time the 
person they're playing the joke on can be seriously injured.  
Something they're not used to in their normal world.

Magpie:
But I think a person who truly respects a person of 
> different abilities or a minority person vulnerable to 
> discrimination as a person naturally continues to do so when they 
> are angry at him/her.  If the minute you're angry at the person or 
> the minute the person does something wrong you're quick to 
establish 
> that you are the superior one because of the different things you 
> were born with, I don't think you truly respected them to begin 
> with. 

PJ:
Agreed, but first you have to realize exactly how those different 
abilities relate and, IMO, they don't have the maturity or the 
personal experience to be able to figure that out yet.  

What they know is that *no one* has been injured by those candies 
and they don't expect the results with Dudley to be any different.  
They grew up enjoying candies that, for us would be deadly -like 
acid pops - and don't know that muggles don't have the same 
tolerance for these things.  Why would they?  They're still kids 
with little or no interaction with actual muggles!  

Magpie:
>Given that Muggles are also sentient beings, and that their 
> children even become Wizards and Wizard children can be born 
> as "Muggles," it should be something they could manage. Even if 
> there were times when they did resort to it, it wouldn't be done 
> lightly.

I think they treat Hermione well and she is from a muggle family... 
I don't see the twins as being anti-muggle at all!  Just ignorant of 
what hurts them... like most of the wizarding world is.

PJ