Taiwanese and referendum

In the previous posting about President Ma's interview with Taipei Times, I quoted Ma to show that

1. He opposed to referendum most strongly, and
2. He stated basically that no country really uses referendum, contrary to the fact that referendum is an integral part of an American election, so that it is a way of life.

How do Taiwanese react to Ma's depriving them of their birthright to referendum and telling outright lies about referendum? Nothing. This posting hypothesizes why:

1. Taiwanese do not understand that point 2 above is an incredible lie. They believe that Ma must be right when he said I don’t think such a system [referendum] exists in the world.
   
2. Since they believe Ma that no country in the world does referendum, they feel it is OK for Ma to deny them the referendum rights.

Here is justification of my hypothesis.

• Note that KMT has never allowed Taiwanese the right to [real] referendum. Consequently, people do not understand referendum and its importance. In my mind, a country without referendum is not democratic. But almost all Taiwanese say Taiwan is democratic.
• Taiwanese truly do not know that in America, referendum is part of an election. Otherwise, how do you explain the very effective KMT propaganda that referendum should not be held at the same time with the legislative and presidential elections?

Why are Taiwanese so ignorant about referendum? Taiwan news media is a big help: there is little international news on TV news or newspapers.