JKR messed up........ no.

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 178530

> Del replies:
> This is exactly the kind of reply I was hoping for: a clear naming of
> a limitation. "People shouldn't act the way they feel they were
> created to act when it hurts other people". Thank you.
> 
> My next question would then be: how do you define hurt? It's pretty
> clear how people are getting hurt in the examples I mentioned above,
> but what about those next examples:
> 
> * Muggles being killed, physically harmed, or Obliviated, as a direct
> consequence of wizards wanting to live their own way.
> 
> * A specific subset of the above category: Muggle families being torn
> apart when their child goes to Hogwarts, because of the Statute of
> Secrecy.
> 
> * Magical races being brought to extinction (Giants), or being
> confined to ever tinier "reservations" because wizards don't want to
> share space with them on mutually agreeable terms (Centaurs).
> 
> Those are all examples of wizards choosing to live the way they feel
> they've been created to live. I personally think that they do great
> harm to entire categories of other "people" by living so. What do you
> think of it?

Prep0strus:
I think that in real life, it is a matter of freedom.  Personal
freedom to act in any way that makes you happy as long as it does not
take away from someone else's right to pursue happiness in their
personal life.  It is when two people's pursuit of their own personal
happiness intersects that an issue arises, and a decision must be
made.  Usually, whichever person is able to live their life most
unaffected by relinquishing their desire, or the one whose desire most
involves OTHERS that (in my opinion, and I believe the law in most
modern societies) sacrifices their desire.

Example: Murder. One person would be made happy by killing someone. 
Another person would be made happy by living their life without being
killed.  The killer is attempting to take away the freedom of life
from the victim, and the victim is attempting to take away the freedom
to kill from the murderer.  We side with the victim, who is not in any
active way impacting the life of the killer, over the murderer, who is
attempting to take away the life of the victim in an active way.

So, in your examples - Muggles being killed - clearly wrong.  They are
harmed, their freedoms taken away, and by NOT killing them, the
wizards lose nothing but the right to kill Muggles wantonly. 
Obliviating them - slightly touchier.  We see examples of this being
treated ok in other ares of fiction - Men in Black comes to mind.  I
think, because the Muggles do not get a choice, this falls on the side
of 'wrong'.  There is no reason why the wizards should be making the
decision for the muggles on whether they wish to remember something
that has occurred in their life experience or not.  It may be 'in the
best interest' of the muggles, who will wind up being confused, and
likely not believed by anyone, but I think that the choice should be
theirs whether they keep their memories or not.

Muggle families being torn apart.  This is VERY different.  This is an
unintended consequence.  The child does not HAVE to go to Hogwarts. 
He/she and his/her family make that decision.  Then, their families do
not HAVE to be torn apart.  It is a risk, because the child is
entering a very different world, and keeping close ties will be
difficult, but not impossible.  Wizards have married muggles.  Clearly
they can interact if the desire is great enough.  In your examples,
there is no one who is 'wrong'.  For the wizards to decide the child
CAN'T go to Hogwarts, again, 'for their own good', is inappropriate. 
That is a decision the family makes and lives with.  There is no
conflict of interest, just a possible negative consequence of a chosen
path.

Magical races being brought to extinction is a much more complex
issue.  It is more of a case of war, of two separate cultures being
unwilling to bend, and must consist of much more complex issues than
we know about.  I'm sure wizards want to be free of giants marching
around stepping on their houses and eating them, which might be the
giants idea of freedom.  In that case, I think the wizards have a
right to defend themselves.  Perhaps the centaurs and giants simply
want the right to roam freely overland that has not been built up by
people.  Wizards, being a small population, seem less likely a reason
for the reduced land for that than muggles.  Centaurs seem to want the
right to simply not be around wizards or muggles, which I guess is a
right that they can exert as long as room on the planet allows.  It is
unclear precisely whether wizards also wish them to be separate.  For
now, it seems like their aims align - each group wishes to remain
separate.  However, there may come a time when members of the
different cultures wish to have more interaction, or world crowding
forces it.  At this point, compromises will have to be made to figure
out how to allow for the lifestyles of each group to live without
impinging on the rights of the others as much as possible.  The same
for the giants.  However, if one group ever needs to be eliminated or
subjugated, it should be the group whose desires most include taking
away the freedom of the group - for instance, if wizards are willing
to have giants around as long as they don't eat them, and giants
continue to want to eat wizards, then I think subjugation of the
giants will be a necessity.  If wizards are willing to let centaurs
around, but only if they let them ride them and live in stables, then
centaurs will have the moral superiority.  Whether they will have the
strength of numbers to prevail is a different issue.

The problem with your final example of homosexuality, is that some
people wish to live their lives doing things that only affect each
other.  Other people wish to live their lives in a world where that
doesn't happen.  Again we have the comparison of which group is taking
away more of the other group's freedom.  One group wants the freedom
to live and love in the way that is natural to them.  The other group
wants to stop anyone from living and loving in that way.  So the first
group would have to sacrifice their happiness and having love in their
life, while the second group would have to sacrifice having the
concept of something they think is wrong in the world.  It is clear
which group has more personal freedom on the line, and which group is
the one more directly trying to take freedoms away.

It is as if I HATED mimes.  I just hated them. So much, and I thought
their little invisible boxes were grotesque, and when they pull on
that invisible rope it's pretty much evil.  And no one is making me be
a mime, or be friends with mimes, or go to mime shows.  But some other
people like mimes, and some people like being mimes.  And while I wish
all mimes should at least have to stay in their homes where no one
could see them, the mimes wish to have the right to walk free and
proud, and other people want the right to watch the mimes in public
places, or include them in their television shows and movies because
of the entertainment it brings them.  My freedom for my life to be
free of mimes only exists so far as it does not impact other people's
lives to have mimes in them.

This is in contrast to smoking.  People have the right to smoke, but
that right is being taken away in some public places.  This is because
another person's smoke can get into my lungs.  They are impinging on
my right to live smoke free.  Smoking is dangerous to my health
(unlike the sight of a mime), and while the smoker is exercising their
personal freedom, more and more they are being asked to do it in a
place where their personal activity will not impact the health and
lives of those around them.

Back to the wizarding world (sorry so long with all the examples) - if
two people liked doing tickling charms on each other, or using
Weaseley  joke tricks on each other.  As long as both are getting
enjoyment out of it, and no one is being hurt, this is allowed.  No
one is going to come up and say - no tickling charms! No more joke
boxes!  Of course, if they started tickling everyone they met, or
using the jokes on people who did not appreciate it, there could
certainly be trouble, because they are impacting other people with
their actions.

I think direct action is the clearest answer to your question, though
there are many complexities, tangents, and shades of grey involved. 
But I don't think one person should stop another person from doing
something because they don't like the 'idea' of it.  I think someone
should only be stopped from doing something when their actions
directly stop someone else from something.  In a very general sense.

Just because muggle-born wizards could potentially return to the
muggle world does not give the other wizards the right to take away
their wands.  They were THEIR wands - the bought them, learned how to
use them from people who wanted to teach them, and they used their
wands in such a way as to live their own lives.  Now these other
wizards say, you living your life, even if it never impacts mine in
any way, is something I find distasteful, so I'm going to take away
your ability to live your life the way you wish.  This is equally as
wrong as if muggle-borns decided that pureblooded wizards had an
unfair advantage in society, and not enough knowledge of the rest of
the world, so decided to take all their children away and make them
group up for the first 11 years of their life with muggles - or maybe
take away their wands entirely so that muggleborns could be the new
authorities.

I feel it makes the most sense to side with the group whose freedom to
live their own life is being impacted the most.

~Adam(Prep0strus), who hopes this long and rambling post was
comprehensible to readers who managed to make it all the way through.