Author: the mister, S
Also this trading period a list with members of the advice organ of the federal government, the Council of Veterans (CoV), was announced in their public club. Though, this time without my name in it, after some time. Why? I’d like also other citizens to get familiar with being advisor of the federal government. For many persons this won’t happen quickly or even never. Still, I’d like to offer those unlucky persons a small view on the CoV. It will be a glance though, to keep the CoV functioning as a good advising organisation.
The organ gets it’s power from forming one group with one opinion. An opinion of a single, respected player has much less influence then that of 11 combined. A group of persons, who reach an opinion together, filters out each other’s thinking flaws and extreme statements. Because that strength arises from being one as a group, you’ll encounter few CoV members who spread around a different opinion on the topic.
That last item is also countered by the known oath of secrecy. The beauty of that oath is that if people try to break it by questioning you, the person having that oath is trained in not giving any information. A very nice fact of which the questioning person isn’t aware usually. Though that oath of secrecy is often considered as annoying, it has it’s use times. I’ll illustrate that with an example: Suppose your grandfather is about to pass away. Because of that, you don’t have time any more to do your duties inside the federation. This includes personal information which not everybody needs to know. An e-mail towards the CoV about that ensures that you probably don’t get punished for resigning while you refrain from making that story about your grandfather public. ‘Thank you, oath of secrecy’ is what the customer of the CoV says then.
Still, you may wonder sometimes whether everything is going fine behind the lock of the club. A familiar subject which can be discussed are so called role conflicts. Already before I became a member, I noticed that quite a big percentage of the CoV members was active in local/national governments. Not strange, considering the fact that those positions are often occupied by experienced citizens. Though, wouldn’t it be possible that CoV members gain advantage in those professions by their knowledge as CoV member? Certainly possible, mixing your roles of CoV member and governor. Whether it happens, depends on insight, ethics and control of the rest of the CoV. Luckily, I’ve seen few of those events.
So, when a closed group has taken seats, what happens next? In which way they think? As a citizen, you continually wonder yourself: ‘What is the best for me to do?’. Often it is about a choice in product, though sometimes also more complicated. Being an advising body of the federal government, there is also such a question: ‘What is the best for the federation?’. It can go from detailed questions considering passive rights of election towards almost literally this question, when advice is needed about a change which affects trade in the whole federation. With this view, a trader is rarely busy. It is also one of the visions which I’ve acquired.