Choosing Policies Without Knowing What They Choose

Illustrating how America is definitely not "the land of the free"  any more, Republican leaders expressed support for Obama's mass surveillance program and called the heroic Edward Snowden a "traitor". Only resigned congressman Ron Paul has expressed support for Snowden while his son, Senator Rand Paul,refused to take any position saying "it's a complicated issue". While Senator Paul is less bad than other Republican officials

Anyway, like most official conservatives, Ralph Peters denounces Snowden, making a curious argument:

In his I-love-me interview, he further opines that the American people, not the government, should decide about programs such as those he revealed. He should have stayed in school until he got to the Civics block on democracy. The American public does vote on these programs — through their representatives in Congress. That’s why we have regular elections.

But how can you vote on something, whether directly in a referendum or indirectly by choosing representatives, if you don't know about it? Knowing about something is of course a necessary requirement for voting about it. It is only because of Snowden that Americans get to vote about it.