An Idea So Crazy I Can't Believe Rick Perry Didn't Think Of It First, Vol, 2

Dave Noon points out South Carolina Republican state legislator Mike Pitts has proposed a bill which reaches new level of lunacy:

South Carolina will no longer recognize U.S. currency as legal tender, if State Rep. Mike Pitts has his way.

Pitts, a fourth-term Republican from Laurens, introduced legislation earlier this month that would ban what he calls “the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin” in South Carolina.

If the bill were to become law, South Carolina would no longer accept or use anything other than silver and gold coins as a form of payment for any debt, meaning paper money would be out in the Palmetto State.

Pitts said the intent of the bill is to give South Carolina the ability to “function through gold and silver coinage” and give the state a “base of currency” in the event of a complete implosion of the U.S. economic system.

OK, obviously this is both totally insane and unconstitutional.  But like I pointed out the other day in discussing Utah's proposal to eliminate the mandatory 12th grade, you have to take these proposals seriously. Pitts represents a real strain of anti-government, hard-currency belief within the loony right wing of the Republican Party. By bringing these ideas up, Pitts gains credibility for himself and his ideas. And his last big idea, a gun tax holiday, was enacted, so it's not like in the feces-tossing atmosphere of the South Carolina legislature he's an isolated figure.