"Pathetic" Muggle-borns (Was: JKR messed up........ no.)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 178485

Magpie wrote:
> > There's no difference between a Pureblood using a wand or a 
Muggle-born; they're just arbitrarily told they can't do it when 
other people can.
> 
Del responded:
> Yes there is a difference: Purebloods grow up knowing that one day
they will use a wand. Muggleborns don't. Muggleborns have to be
*invited* into the WW, while Purebloods are *born* in it. That's a
major difference. If Salazar Slytherin had had his way, Muggleborns
today would live their entire life not knowing they are wizards, and
thus not missing the use of a wand, though they would suffer negative
side-effects of it, granted. <snip>
> 
Magpie:
> > People can pick up and move to other countries where they don't
have the skills to be as successful and where they're outsiders and
survive--that doesn't make evicting them necessarily right or okay.
> 
Del:
> I agree. 
<snip>

Magpie: 
> > Or were you just saying, not related to the discussion, that you 
foudn those particular Muggle-borns pathetic in what they were doing?
> 
Del:
> Yes, that's what I was actually saying. I found *those* Muggleborns
pathetic.

Carol joins in:

Are we saying his name now, erm, talking about the books now? <smiles
happily and dances by herself, like Luna at the wedding>

I think Del has made an interesting point about the Muggle-borns, who
suddenly seem to find themselves in a position like Merope's before
her son's birth (except for the pregnancy, in most cases)--unable to
earn a living or fend for themselves just because their wands have
been taken away. Now Merope had some excuse. She seems to have been
wholly uneducated and her heart was broken. She had grown up in
poverty and knew nothing else. She had no self-esteem and few skills,
and her looks might have been taken, in that unenlightened period, to
indicate mental deficiency. 

But why would Muggle-borns educated at Hogwarts be reduced to begging
in the streets (setting aside those whose relatives were being held
hostage)? Lupin was unemployed and unemployable for most of his life,
and he wore shabby clothes (which for some reason could not be mended
by magic), but he never begged in the streets. Either his friends
helped him out or he found some way to scrounge up a few sickles.
(That battered suitcase labeled "Professor R. J. Lupin" doesn't quite
fit with permanent unemployment, but, oh, well.) 

So why can't these Muggle-borns, as Del suggested, take refuge in the
Muggle world among their Muggle relatives, at least till the danger
passes, or even make a new life for themselves outside the WW?
Granted, a Hogwarts education isn't much help toward a Muggle career,
but they can read and write and do some sort of mathematical
calculations ("I can do maths and stuff," Muggle-raised Harry tells
Hagrid in SS/PS), and Hogwarts offers at least one Muggle-like course,
Astronomy. Are they really that helpless? Why not Apparate to Muggle
London, keeping their wands with them, rather than having it
confiscated, and putting it to good use (even if they can't conjure up
food or money) as long as they can do so without violating the Statute
of Secrecy and being arrested by the new Ministry? If they have money
saved up, it's still spendable in the WW. Only those with no savings
would need to beg, and they could leave the WW before their situation
became desperate. Just Apparate across the Channel into France if they
don't think that Muggle London or Muggle Edinburgh is safe.

A few Muggle-borns (Dean Thomas, Ted Tonks, and Dirk Cresswell among
them) run from the Ministry rather than complying with the order to
give up their wands. But the two adults, competent as they seem to be
in our few glimpses of them (Ted is good at healing; Dirk is head of
the Goblin Liaison Office and a former Sluggie, and they're able,
unlike HRH, to summon salmon from the river and cook them)
nevertheless end up dead, apparently because they lack Hermione's
expertise in protective spells, and Dean ends up captured by the
Snatchers, rescued, like HRH, Luna, and the others, by Dobby.

Why are the Muggle-borns (other than Hermione) so helpless in this
book? Is it just because JKR wants them to face a situation like that
faced by Jews and gypsies and other "non-Aryan" groups in Nazi
Germany? Even with their wands and a Hogwarts education, they can't
survive in the wilderness without being caught by Snatchers or DEs?
(Maybe Dirk or Ted or Dean made the mistake of saying "Voldemort"?)

Thoughts, anyone?

Carol, rather inclined to agree with Del that the Muggle-born beggars
in Diagon Alley are "pathetic," and not in the sense of inspiring
pathos, but not wanting to feel that way