Apparently on the good advice of our good friend, Glenn Beck, who’s pirate-eyed obsession with gold is bizarre to say the least — gold marketeers are about the only sponsors he has left, after all, given his maniacal rants night in and night out — my home state’s own, South Carolina Rep. Mike Pitts, has introduced a bill to have gold and silver coins replace the federal dollar as legal tender in his state, a move that is soooooo 17th century.

It’s also soooooo unconstitutional since one of the listed powers of Congress, not the states, in the Constitution is to “coin,” or make, money.

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. — U.S. Constitution

Thus, states can’t coin money or issue it, but they can technically use gold or silver to pay debts (state debts, not issue gold and silver to residents for paying individual debts), which would be an anachronistic idea in modern times. Yet, Pitts is still, yes, 250 years after the fact, playing the stupifying states’ rights card:

But Pitts maintains that his state is better off with something he can hold in his hand and barter with as opposed to federal currency, which he described to the Scoop as “paper with ink on it.” He says he resents what he considers the federal government’s intrusions on states’ rights.

We’re still talking about states’ rights? Really?!?

Regardless, South Carolina has an unfaithful governor who seemingly using state resources to foster his extra-marital affair and then, representatives who want to send us back to the 17th century, or at the least, the mid-19th century. That’s all this state needs.