Great post, Kendall! (a couple back) You are so right that no one is responsible for what his ancestors did. Children do not inherit their parents' or grandparents' guilt, and no one is guilty merely by association.

I would have to agree with Teribus that the British Empire, as empires go, also did a lot of good in the sense that they were far better organized than most empires, had a better system of law and governance than most empires, and were less brutal in their treatment of colonized people than many empires have been. So it was a mixed picture. (Rome was like that too, and I'd say that the British to some extent consciously modelled their own empire on the classical Greco-Roman example. Note the names of many British warships, for instance, when it comes to that.)

There is a good deal of admiration still among modern day Indians and Pakistanis, for example, for the British, despite the fact that they certainly do not want the British to rule them. Yet they admire Great Britain, and the many of the wealthier still send their sons and daughters there for "a British education" if they can manage it. This indicates that they see value in the British system.

I guess you could call it a "love/hate" relationship? ;-) What I mean is, both emotions are certainly in play there not just one of them, among Britain's former colonial peoples. This indicates that when it came to running empires, the British didn't do a half-bad job as empires go.

I'd say they did a considerably better job than the Americans are presently doing.