listen to an uneducated public?

If the average voting American could not pass a citizenship test, then why would we want them to completely determine national public policy? How could they avoid historical mistakes if they do not know them? How could they consider other counties' perspectives when they do not even historically know their own?

I agree that the current government seems to utterly ignore public opinion and disregards the public dis-rest that their actions cause; I am not arguing that public opinion should not matter as that is the entire point of living in a democracy. However, I would like to emphasize the lack of public awareness in regards to international affairs. If they concern themselves at all with such things, they hear only from a (probably biased) news report. There is no follow up or real concern in furthering their knowledge on the subject. A group may go online and educate themselves more thoroughly on world events, reading various sources to end up with a rounded set of information. This, sadly, is not often the case though.

Here at American University, in Washington DC and at the heart of our country's political being, it is easy to forget how unattached many areas of the United States are with politics. Their opinions are completely uneducated and thus are probably not the best thing to go off of when running a country. We elect public officials because we agree to trust their judgment. They should of course consider the will of the people, but if their foresight allows them to see outcomes unknown to the general public, then they must act upon that educated vision. Politicians are obligated (though they certainly don't always adhere to said obligations, that is another matter entirely) to do what is best for the country. I believe that those are the best guidelines, no matter how unclear, for national policy.

"What's best," though completely subject to opinion, requires (or tries to) national policy to consider America as a whole as well as individual interest groups. It is all-encompassing and thus impossible. Yet it is something to strive towards; the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, it provides a goal for policy makers to look towards. The American public, I fear, has even less of a chance than the government does of discovering what is at the end of the tunnel and realizing how to reach it. So, though I wouldn't mind the government being slightly more responsive to public opinion, I prefer that they run the country.