I'm not talking about grudges against your peers or others you may know in your life.

I'm talking about grudges against entire nations.

I was having a conversation with one of my closest friends the other day, and she said something along the lines of 'I hate Great Britain because they used to occupy my country.' She's from India, so yes, G.B. did in fact occupy India a long time ago.

But that's the thing: IT WAS A LONG ING TIME AGO.

I told her she was being irrational by hating a country's decisions from decades ago, but she's far too close-minded about this particular topic (she's generally as liberal as you can get, like me).

I was apalled. I asked her if Germany is inherently a bad country because of Hitler; or if Russia is evil because it used to be ruled by Stalin; or if Japan is still a murderous and awful country just because it set out on an imperialist agenda back in the 20th century. She turned my argument around saying that yes, some Jews hate Germany because of Hitler, and that some Koreans also hate Japan.

How is it ethically justified to attest a nation's 'goodness' to the decisions their past leaders made? G.B. isn't going around trying to colonize India anymore. Germany isn't on a Jewish hunt. 

Heck, think about it this way: You hate the entire Smith family because 100 years ago one of their family members killed one of your family members.

Or: You hate that b*tch Suzy because in grade school she spilled spaghetti all over your dress and made the entire class laugh at you.

Of course you're not going to be completely okay with someone hurting you. It's okay to be angry and upset for a while after it first happens. But judging an entire government or nation or family or whatever just because of something that happened so so soooo long ago? That just doesn't sit right with me. At all.