Firstly, I said nothing of reparations. I talked about owning the responsibility. That can take the form of education, it can take the form of reparations, it has many forms. All those forms are imperfect, but they are each better than doing nothing because 'hey, it was a long time ago, man.'
Second, to this point:
The rank and file who pay the taxes in the western countries were being subjugated also and certainly did not gain from the moneys raised in the colonies.
That's just not true, friend. Just because economic injustice exists in colonizing counties today and existed then, doesn't mean their rank and file aren't still benefitting from the actions of their prodecessors. Their infrastructure, their economies, their sociopolitical systems -- stuff that the enables the rank and file to worry about paying taxes instead of, for example, starving and dying in a civil war -- that is the benefit that has been created. To take that for granted is to bury how that got built.
Sorry I don't understand your comment.