Fred, I meant only that the desired result had been obtained from the action (i.e. that the miscreants stopped hassling the butt-kickers' lady-friend), not that it doesn't matter if they went elsewhere and hassled someone else. Sorry, my choice of phraseology wasn't very clear. I was trying to make a point that, at the moment the butt-kicking took place, the butt-kickers weren't interested in anything other than stopping the hassling of their friend. That the miscreants might do it elsewhere wasn't a part of the butt-kickers' reasoning.

So it's back to my other point - the need for consistency from adults in enforcing a code of socially-acceptable conduct (and I include EVERYONE in that - parents, teachers, social workers (who often seem to be professional excuse-makers), judges (ditto social workers), Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. Unfortunately, and this goes right back to my first posting, standards seem to be falling amongst adults over successive generations in a logarithmic way.

Reading your posting over again (twice) I think you and I are in agreement - you're just more eloquent with words than I am.