I take comments like this very seriously, having been accused of "tinfoil" when pointing to evidence of global surveillance programs (e.g. Office of Strategic Influence, Total Information Awareness, etc) before journalists broke the Snowden story.

Luckily, I think most people on Hacker News are realistic people not easy to excite into witch hunts and victim-blaming like you suggest. I think most people on Hacker News believe that the governments of Russia, France, Turkey, Germany, China, and others including the United States, manage their appearance to the publics they represent, making appeals for and finding evidence to build the case for their own legitimacy. That's not an extraordinary claim, you can find media reporting that suggests a wide range of policies and rhetoric from around the world are motivated by public appearance and appeals to legitimacy. Much of the censorship that people experience in the world is similarly motivated.

The character attacks against Snowden have evolved over time: "he didn't understand the programs / he was just a low level employee", "his girlfriend was a stripper", "he's a Russian spy", "he didn't go through the proper channels", "he just wants to be in the news", "he was a disgruntled employee".

These slanderous rumors, spread by anonymous officials and PR contracts, belie the fact that there is no desire to discuss the abuse disclosed by the whistleblowing. What anonymous officials, press offices and paid PR coverage want to talk about are rumors and opinions about Snowden's intentions - topics that not only distract from the documents (which are conclusive evidence of highly illegal and unethical behavior) with inconclusive speculation but topics that have a specific effect on the public attitude and narrative understanding of the events that unfolded.

Those who think that there has to be some wide ranging conspiracy for officials to react in a self-defensive manner are unrealistic. Those who think the human nature of American officials deeply differs from Chinese officials, French officials, or Turkish officials (etc) are unrealistic and unconvincing.

So to the first question you posed: no. I have a higher opinion of Hacker News commentators than that. I don't think they are dumb or immature or unrealistic. At least, not to that extreme degree.