Logos01 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong
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Any political capital that could only be preserved by NOT rescuing a 12-year-old-girl from having her dreams, hopes, and life tortured out of her until she dies... isn't political capital I'd be willing to preserve, frankly.
Also; consider the political capital he just GAINED that day. "The Boy-Who-Lived is so powerful that even Dementors fear him! Clearly, he is a power to be reckoned with!" <-- political capital out the wazzoo.
I think you are equivocating political power and political capital. Scaring dementors doesn't show legitimacy quite the way winning elections does. In other words, political capital is a kind of political power, but not the only kind.
The blood debt was political capital. Scaring the dementor will create political power of another kind.
I'm not equivocating; I'm equating. Political power is political capital; political capital is political power. If you have one, you have the other.