Protecting the Stupid

The Failed Obama Administration is proposing to limit consumer finance contracts. A new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) would amplify existing government assaults on the people’s right to make contracts:

Traditionally, consumer protection in the United States has focused on disclosure. It has always been assumed that with adequate disclosure all consumers -- of whatever level of sophistication -- could make rational decisions about the products and services they are offered. No more. If the administration's plan is adopted, many consumers will be told that they cannot have particular products or services because they are not sophisticated, educated or perhaps intelligent enough to understand what they have been offered.

Don Boudreaux extends the reasoning:

But let's accept, for argument's sake, the administration's judgment that ordinary Americans can't adequately assess complexity. Doesn't it then follow that Americans' election of Mr. Obama to high office deserves no credit? After all, isn't the task of assessing the merit of one person's ideas on economics, foreign affairs, ethics, law, and other difficult topics extraordinarily complex?

My paraphrase: If you’re too stupid to understand a mortgage contract or an investment prospectus, you’re too stupid to vote.

Worse, if you do vote, you will likely elect someone also stupid. The stupid government will be ineffective when it does attempt to protect you. You will have difficulty discerning when the elected stupids attempt to exploit you.

The Federal Government, thus, for the public good, should be dissolved.