I think I can understand where laser's position is coming from. It's the standard "Everyone Must Be Held Responsible For His/Her Own Actions" position. And I happen to agree with it...when it applies. Like me, laser is probably sick and tired of hearing everyone blame every problem they have on someone else. [The tornado blew my garage down, and I blame the Federal Government!]
Laser, as a fellow conservative-thinking person, I'd like to suggest you make a comparison. A comparison, say, between the responsibility a stranger has to you--and the responsibility a mother has to you. If you trust a stranger, and he lies to you, manipulates you and takes your money, sure, you can accept a huge share of the blame for trusting him. But if your mother--who has assumed the most trusted position possible in your life--lies to you, manipulates you and takes your money, we have an entirely different matter.
It's true that the woman who committed suicide ultimately bears the greatest blame for what she did. But when the Watchtower Society's system drew her into its fold, it did so with certain very plain understandings. They would be her "mother." They would teach, nurture and shepherd her. Additionally, as a child of this organization, she was told she must be "sheep-like" in order to be properly appreciative of "mother." She was to submit to the Watchtower Society's authority quite absolutely. No, Mother never did hold a firearm to her head. But throughout her life they did make clear that if she ever chose her own course--apart from them--they would cut her off from her entire family within--as well as every member of perhaps the only community of friends she ever knew. And the Most High God's very own Faithful and Discreet Slave even told her she would be destroyed forever. No gun needed.
This is not a case of a person's accepting a job with an employer, discovering certain unsavory things about them, putting in her two weeks' notice, and leaving to carry on life as before. The Watchtower Society does not merely control your working hours and paycheck. It seeks to gain even more trust than you would give your biological parent. It's only now that many of us have discovered (well into our adulthood) that they were actually willing to deceive us, lying and covering things up, to keep this trust.
I don't know this woman. Nor do I know any of the others involved. If we knew the specifics, it's entirely possible we would feel a bit differently about the reasons they all did the things they did. But the Watchtower Society bears gigantic blame for assuming the "motherly" position they have, subjecting their "children" to extraordinary emotional manipulation, then casting them out by means of an incredibly cruel and childish policy that screens them off from every single person they love.
