Picking up on the ancestral tradition, South Carolinians have spent much of the last two years asserting various forms of independence from the federal government and attempting to block different federal laws. Now a state senator from the Palmetto State has decided it’s time for South Carolina to create its own currency.State Sen. Lee Bright (R-Roebuck) says that federal spending and increased monetary intervention by the Fed have placed the entire US Federal Reserve system on a path to monetary collapse. And when the crash comes, state residents will need to rely on the stable South Carolina currency to weather the storm.

“If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup,” Bright told Stephen Largen of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal on Friday.

Bright’s proposed legislation states that “many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future; and …

South Carolina can avoid or at least mitigate many of the economic, social, and political shocks to be expected to arise from hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System only through the timely adoption of an alternative sound currency that the state’s government and citizens may employ without delay in the event of the destruction of the Federal Reserve System’s currency.

The legislation calls for the creation of a joint legislative subcommittee which would study the “the need, means, and schedule for establishing such an alternative currency.”

Others in the state are less than impressed with the idea. “It’s a waste of time; it’s a waste of resources,” says Phil Bailey, direct of the state Senate Democratic Caucus. “I mean who’s paying for this study? Will they be paid in actual dollars or gold doubloons?”

(ed.note: Special thanks to TPM Reader TK for sending along word of this developent.)