Frivolous distractions from public matters constantly intrude upon the resources of American leaders in government positions. The most recent example to catch measurable attention was the rejection of a petition that suggested the United States build a “Star Wars”-style Death Star.

On the “We the People” website for petitions that the White House established, there are many petitions. Among them? “Repeal New York States- NY SAFE ACT Gun Control is not the answer, education is!” “Look into state constitutions banning atheists from holding public office.” “Recognize International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19).” The tally goes on.

Such nonsense easily could be prevented through even one iota of civic education. If the Constitution was still a widely read document, if the history of the American Revolution and the early republic had not been reduced to trite one-liners or platitudes, then perhaps the White House would not have to deal with such wastes of time as some of the gems mentioned above.

Unfortunately, the White House views “We the People” as “Your voice in our government.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. American citizens’ voice in the federal government is their representatives, elected every second year. Those representatives live in the same districts as their voters and make laws in Congress that affect themselves (in theory) as much as they affect their constituents.

Or, better yet, American citizens’ voice in the federal government is themselves. They express that voice any time they mingle with one another and debate the issues that, they discover, they have in common, heckle candidates for office (as opposed to putting their hands up and waving signs at mass rallies), and educate themselves by reading the news from a variety of perspectives to form their own opinions.

It should be noted that the “We the People” site is — by its own admission — a place where people can petition the executive branch, not their true representatives. Right at the top of the page, immediately before the list of active petitions, it states: “We petition the Obama administration to:” do this, that, and the other thing. Sadly, such an opportunity makes two problems even worse.

First, making the Obama administration into an advocate, rather than the chief executive of the U.S. government, distracts his administration from dealing with the issues he outlined in, say, his second inaugural address. Instead of working with Congress to improve the efficiency of the government’s workings and to bring all the data the executive branch holds to Congress’ attention so that they can enact laws that benefit the whole country, the White House must become an agent of populism, giving attention to the democratic mob. There is little constitutional point to making him so, since he cannot introduce legislation into Congress.

Second, establishing the White House as the recipient and disseminator of petitions allows members of Congress — the people who, in any representative government, not just that established by the Constitution, are the people’s advocates — to concentrate on what the members of their party want, rather than on what everyone from their constituency wants.

At the end of the day, the power to redress this grievance lies with two entities: the White House, and individual Americans. Indeed, the White House seems to have made some effort to curtail the proliferation of distracting petitions, by raising the number of signatures a digital petition must garner before it must respond. As for the American people, a good way to make sure a petition is a legitimate idea is to put it through the rigors of having to walk around all across Congressional districts to interact with actual people and get to them to add their names to an actual piece of paper.