All Subversive Organizations Now Must Register in South Carolina

This appears not to be a joke:

The state’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed last year and now officially on the books, states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.” There’s even a $5 filing fee. By “subversive organization,” the law means “every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State.”

Wow, is that idiotic or what?

Here’s the form.

Does the Republican Party count as an organization that “directly … advocates … controlling … the government”? I think it does. I think all political parties count under that definition.

How about we all fill in a copy and send it to them.

EDITED TO ADD (2/9): I misquoted the statute: “(1) ‘Subversive organization’ means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means;”

It’s the last clause that rules out most of us.

EDITED TO ADD (2/11): And it seems that this is from the McCarthy era: 1951.

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 12:09 PM • 99 Comments