Assuming you're a US citizen, to what degree are you personally culpable for the illegal behaviour of the current government? How responsible are you for the recent extrajudicial murders committed by the USA?
I'm not sure why you are making this assumption, but assuming you are not trying to derail the discussion with the usual whataboutism argument, and taking your question at face value, the answer would be "yes".
A citizen of any country should feel responsible for the actions of their government, vote, and take action when things begin to get out of hand. Dictatorships are rarely created overnight, they usually begin slowly by gaining support within the population, with the opposing part of the population doing nothing (or not doing enough). And taking the United States example, we are at an interesting point where indeed it seems it is time to do more: organize opposition, demonstrate, organize strikes?
I wouldn't call it whataboutism, it's thinking about things from another perspective. It's easy to say other people should take action when things get out of hand, it's entirely another thing to actually take up action against an entity which can crush you and everything you love without a second thought.
I would never expect the average Iranian to take up arms against the Revolutionary Guard, for example. I wouldn't, if it were me. I don't feel such patriotism that I feel responsible for my country's actions. I don't feel that I am personally culpable in any way for, for example, the extrajudicial murders of Afghanis by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan.
The last time (and current time) a president was in power that I didn't agree with (and didn't vote for), I left. As a citizen, I can't fully escape taxes, but I will be my darnedest to reduce my taxable burden when I don't approve of the government.
Some of the nations that are sanctioned by the US etc. literally do not let most their citizens leave. Citizens of all of them will have difficulty getting visas due to the poor relations that resulted in sanctions in the first place. On top of that, even if there are no political barriers not everyone will have the means to do so.
I’m also curious at what point you assign culpability for remaining in a country. Obviously, a baby born in the country can’t be culpable or the concept becomes meaningless. At what age or level of maturity can we start to condemn someone for not noticing that their government is evil and then leaving their family to escape?
So being an elite who escapes the consequences of what elites have done is a virtue that should be rewarded? Why would people look up to a runner? Most people don't have anywhere else to go, and love where they're from.
The USA is full of people that left their home country with nothing because they disagreed with how their home country is managed. For example, the Vietnamese boat people. I hardly consider that cohort of immigrants 'elite'.
Taiwan is another example. Taiwan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for mainlanders voting with their feet.
> Taiwan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for mainlanders voting with their feet.
Woah, woah, the ROC invaded Taiwan with a huge group of armed settler-colonialists, and then initiated a violent martial law on everyone here. The KMT settlers didn't vote with their feet, they imperialised Taiwan and the people here. Taiwan would absolutely exist either way, there would probably have been democracy here a lot sooner if not for the KMT's martial law, since the common thread throughout all 6 decades of their rule, it was non-KMT people (earlier immigrants, indigenous people, and even a few Japanese descendants) that led opposition efforts. Not to mention much of the reason the PRC makes imperialist claims against Taiwan is because of their humiliation that they failed to defeat the KMT utterly, and this country retained the name ROC when it transitioned to democracy in the 90's - the best the opposition could achieve in the face of KMT power.
Really Taiwan makes the opposite case because after the cultural revolution, which is before the beginning of Taiwanese democracy, Taiwanese people could have gone to the PRC and had life there, fleeing martial law, but instead people stayed and worked to overthrow the KMT.
I personally believe packing your shit and heading out is a totally valid action in the face of oppression and fascism, that's why I left the USA after all. I don't think I agree that everyone has a responsibility to risk their lives to overthrow oppressive leaders, the reason I wouldn't stick around though is I won't accept the moral risk of accidentally supporting the regime, which is why for example I don't pay USA taxes anymore.
Why stop at citizens? Why aren’t all humans responsible? You can’t just sit on the sidelines and say “well I am not responsible for what my fellow humans do”.
Except the concept of Collective responsibility had been considered inhumane and Collective punishment is forbidden since the Hague convention, the Nuremberg trial considered this as a part of fascist ideology.
If your government started doing something you don't agree with, would you renounce your citizenship and move to another country? What would be the threshold of bad things that would be required for you to do that? I think I do have such a threshold, but even as bad as things are in the US right now, I'm still here. Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe not; I'd like to think not.
Also just consider that we can't all be responsible for everyone else in the whole world. That's just not possible, and not reasonable to ask of anybody. Someone living paycheck-to-paycheck, in a tiny apartment, trying to feed their kids, afraid of getting evicted or being unable to put food on the table... that person does not have the mental or emotional bandwidth to be concerned about people in Iran suffering under US sanctions.
Even someone of higher financial means... what should they care about? Should they care about Iran? Ukraine? Palestine? Those are the ones in the news right now at least. But dig a bit deeper and you'll find a bunch of other places where their government meddles in politics and war. Do we need to care deeply about those, too?
Human psychology is not built for global scale. Honestly, if we could get all humans to care deeply about their local and regional communities, I would think that would be a huge win. Getting everyone to care deeply about people halfway across the world, and constantly consider them in their life decisions? That's a pipe dream.
> In countries where people didn't vote, you can always go back in history to find a moment where people either did agree to let a certain faction run their country (religious revolution), or allowed an authoritarian regime to take all power slowly by neglect and doing nothing.
I think at this point you've really jumped the shark. Using Iran as the salient example here, do you truly believe that some 30 year old living in Iran is responsible for a regime that was installed before they were born?
> If your government started doing something you don't agree with, would you renounce your citizenship and move to another country?
Yes — and I even thought about the specific red lines that would make me do it.
> Using Iran as the salient example here, do you truly believe that some 30 year old living in Iran is responsible for a regime that was installed before they were born?
Iran is not a good example, because as many have pointed out, sanctions are often mandated by law, not imposed voluntarily.
But there are other examples, where if we follow this line of reasoning ("but regular people are not responsible!") we end up with business as usual while people get murdered. See Russia for an up-to-date example. Being a citizen of a country that murders civilians must have consequences, we can't just do business as usual. Seems unfair? I bet the people who have been murdered would consider the state of things unfair, too.
