[dotancohen]

> What’s the point of having the right to vote and having people represent us if we’re not aware of what they should be dealing with wrt foreign policy, say?

The corollary would be to ask, if the common citizen must keep abreast of all events anyway, then why have representatives at all? Why not a direct democracy?

Ostensibly the purpose of a representative democracy is that the elected official would become an expert on the subjects for which he dictates policy. If he isn't doing that, then no matter if the populace is educated or not, policy will suffer.