Another one that hurts

There seems to be a bit of confusion developing over the difference between a state and a person.The US has no credibility in any comment it makes on nuclear disarmament. This has nothing at all do with World War II, however*. This is because they still have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Those running the US governent today are not responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the overwhelming majority were not yet born, and those that were were very small children with no influence on events.Similarly, despite being British, I am not responsible for any of the British governments involvements in Iraq, on account of not having voted for that government. Most who did vote for that government share no responsibility either, but that's a slightly more complicated argument that I'll leave for now.All I really wanted to do was point out that people are only responsible for their own actions. An important thing to remember given that ignoring this is part of what enables the behaviour that prompted this thread.*bearing in mind that I'm speaking in some sort of idealised sense of what should be. In the real world, of course, people do actually hold grudges for things done long before those they begrudge were born.

This sounds like a nice simple truism at first, but it quickly loses it's sense when you think about it in any detail.For starters, how do we determine whether someone is sharing in the benefits of their nation's acheivements? If I find a guy on the street searching in a skip for some food that someone might have thrown away, for example, he's clearly not sharing in any benefits of his nation's prior activities. Is he, then, exempt from responsibility for the Iraq war, since he has no benefit from other things done by the British government?The argument of sharing in benefits makes no sense if it applies to him too, but if it doesn't, then at what point is the line drawn? How much wealth is someone required to possess before they are considered to be sharing in benefits?Even amongst people with wealth, if they gained it through an economic activity their government restricts, and so could have been much wealthier if their government behaved differently, are they also exempt from responsibility for their government's actions? They earned their wealth, after all, in spite of the government, not because of it.As for me, I left the UK about a decade ago, so the only benefits I get from being a UK citizen now is a passport that makes travel fairly easy. Am I now, however, partially culpable for all the past actions of the country in which I live, since I share whatever benefits have accrued from previous behaviour as the native population?What about if my government's actions lessen my quality of life. Do I still bear responsibility for what they do despite campaigning and voting against it, even though its effects on me were negative?