Allegiance, Loyalty, and Citizenship

What does it mean to be loyal?

As near as I can tell it means the willingness to do something that you generally consider "wrong," or not do something that you would normally do, for the benefit of another person. For example, if you see someone shoplifting, you might report them (assuming you care enough, most people would think this is the proper course of action). If you see your best friend shoplifting, you wouldn't report him. This is because you're loyal to your friend, but not a random stranger. Of course loyalty is usually limited (if you saw your best friend commit murder, you would probably be very conflicted, and maybe report him). Some people have good objections to this view of loyalty, but this is the way I believe it works.

Although loyalty to a person is relatively easy to define, loyalty to an ideal or a country is harder, but I believe it follows the same general vein. Loyalty to an ideal means you're willing to do some things wrong, to further the goals of this ideal.

Loyalty to a country means you're willing to put the interests of your country above the interests of other countries. That is, you want your country to win, even if it means other countries lose. Unfortunately, there's also a problem with defining what a country is. Is a country the nation-state? Is a country the people that live in it? Is a country the government? Or is it the ideals that a country claims to embody? (Sometimes the main loyalty also isn't to a country, but to a religion say).

In any case, it is not too far of a stretch (in my opinion it's not a stretch at all) to see that Citizenship is granted based on loyalties. That is, you get Citizenship to the country you value more than any other. Of course than there's the problem with dual citizenship, but usually you're only allowed to get that if your two countries are allies. I know several people that openly proclaim that their main loyalty is not to the United States, and are US Citizens. Should they be denied citizenship? (well, according to the rules of dual citizenship they shouldn't, but...) Then I know some people that say they feel no loyalty to the US, what about them? Finally, there's people like me, I feel no loyalty to any country that I can think of? Where should I get Citizenship?

Anyways, I think the whole idea of loyalty is... not good in some senses. For example, if you're in a court case with a judge, you definetly want the judge to have no loyalties to any of the people involved. So, inside your country you always have a person that fixes things when loyalty gets in the way, but in the world at large, no such arbiter exists. (As I learned in my poli sci class, this is called an anarchic system). So, whereas loyalty doesn't cause any major problems in a country, it can cause major problems between countries.

United States Drug Schedule Madness

In the United States Drug Schedules are used to determine to what extent certain drugs are federally regulated. Drugs in Schedules I and II have a high potential for abuse. Drugs in Schedule I have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and there is a lack of accepted safety of the drug under medical supervision.

Given the use of medical marijuana in California, I would have to argue that there is definitely a medical use of this drug. I would also argue that there is not a lack of accepted safety with this drug because it is difficulty to accidentally overdose. Unfortunately marijuana is on the Schedule I drug list. This means that legally marijuana has no accepted medical use and it is illegal to use marijuana medically.

Cocaine is used to some extent nationally in hospitals as a topical anesthetic. Cocaine's usage has decreased over the years, but it is definitely still used. Cocaine is on the Schedule II drug list. This means that by law there is a currently accepted medical use for cocaine. This is certainly true, although decreasingly so.

The thing that greatly bothers me about the United States Drug Schedules is that it is ruled that there is no acceptable medical use for marijuana, but there is an acceptable medical use for cocaine. Marijuana is a fairly effective painkiller that is much less physically shocking and much less addictive than many alternative painkillers that are legally prescribed. Cocaine is much more dangerous recreationally and therefore has a much greater potential for abuse. Why should cocaine be legal to prescribe if marijuana is not?