Why do we get punished for the sins of Adam? (revisit)

This coming Sunday our First Reading discusses the Fall of Adam and Eve:

                            You have eaten, then,
                            from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!"--Genesis 3

Thus is born the doctrine of Original Sin.

All over the internet are folks who object to this concept:

• "It seemed unfair that I should be responsible for some moral deviation that I had no control over."

• "Why should guilt-less offspring be punished for the actions of their parents?"

• "All people inherit Adam's sin"

• "Every person on earth is born guilty by inheriting Adam's first sin"

How is it fair that we are guilty for what Adam and Eve did?  Why should we be found guilty for something we didn't do?

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The articulations (in purple) above, however, demonstrate a rather impoverished understanding of Original Sin.

We are NOT guilty of the sins of Adam and Eve.

NO ONE IS GUILTY OF ANYONE ELSE'S SIN.

We simply are deprived of the grace that was given to Adam and Eve.  

They lost it because of their actions.

And because they didn't have it, they couldn't pass it on to their descendants.

We are not held personally responsible for Adam's guilt. We are not punished for someone else's sin. We didn't inherit anyone's sin.

Rather:

Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.--Catechism of the Catholic Church

That is, because Adam and Eve wounded their human nature, this wounded/flawed human nature was passed on to us.

I've heard it described analogously as a sort of spiritual genetic mutation. The original intention was for us to be living in a perfected state. However, because of our first parents' choice, they damaged this "spiritual gene", and thus every human person inherits this damaged "gene".

So...we're not guilty of anyone's sin except our own.

But we are deprived of the original perfect nature that was our inheritance.

Thus, Original Sin isn't actually a "sin" that we inherit. It's a deprivation of sanctifying grace. It's the explanation for this abnormal state we're born into.