Skullduggery is too dangerous an enterprise to indulge much compassion or welfare state nannying. Children are expected to sink or swim, like everybody else, when they are old enough to think and are biologically no longer children. Since I've mentioned it repeatedly, perhaps it's time to define skullduggery. I initially addressed this topic philosophically in Human Goodness Proven Beyond Doubt . There is no intrinsic merit in life.
Men routinely kill, because our lives are continually at risk.
That's the whole point of insecticide. Cockroaches, ticks, mosquitoes, and flies may have tiny little skulls, but no sane individual feels much compassion in the act of crushing them. It's us or them. Artistic bums are no less heartless than pirates in this respect. If it is certain that a mob of gangsters or democrats pose a clear and present danger to the innocent, then war is inevitable.