text: as a society, where do we draw the line as to when a person is responsible for their actions or not? where is the bright line with this when it comes to adults?  certain kinds of mental illnesses make someone not responsible but should their past come to play in it as well?  or how they were treated as children?  have we become a society that now makes excuses for everything someone might do? where is the line drawn as to what constitues a reason and what makes it an excuse? how do we shift it back, if it needs to be, from this point and bring back personal responisbility? i do feel we are a society that has come to make excuses for everything and responsibilty falls to the waste side.  either that or we just pass the blame along til we forget what the blame is.  if you have a clean cut case.  he killed her with a gun in the lobby.  its simple.  he goes to jail.  case closed.  but when it comes to the tougher issues.  he killed her with a gun in the lobby but he has been on meds since 85 for an illness he cant help and some one forgot to remind him to take it.  thats where blame gets passed along like a basketball.  do we blame him or blame the person who forgot to remind him to take the meds that keep him balanced.   in my honest opinion we have become a society who is weak.  we look for the easy way out.  we dont look at the source of the problem.  we assume that either the man or the caregiver of the mentally ill is responsible.  we do not look at the illness and say, how could we have helped him better before this happened.  we dont want to take the hard cases.  and so the ball keeps going around the court.