Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Sometimes I have to wonder what's in the water down in South Carolina. They've now passed a law requiring subversives to register with the government. Seriously.
Five-dollar registration fee for persons planning to overthrow US governmentTerrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions -- or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.
*Tilts head to the left*
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."
Great idea. Next they should have a registry for rapists and murderers. And stock up on lots of those registration forms.
I wonder if the group Christian Exodus is included in this? They've designated South Carolina as the state for the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts to move to, take over and secede from the union to set up a theocracy. Hell, they just had a get together in Charleston.
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Comments
Wow, talk about pointless grandstanding!
The only thing I can thing of is they want something on the books to prosecute would-be terrorists in State court (rather than Federal court) after they're arrested. It's like the IRS saying you have to report criminal gains on your takes: no one expects criminals to actually do so, but it gives the Feds another hammer to use after someone's caught.
Or am I giving them too much credit?
Posted by: WScott | February 10, 2010 9:40 AM
So Grover Norquest and members of his organization will need to register? Plus all those "good ol' boys" aching for the Confederacy.
Posted by: Stefan Krzywicki | February 10, 2010 9:40 AM
Sound's like Fox News and the Tea Party will have to register as well.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | February 10, 2010 9:43 AM
So... does this mean Texas and Chuck Dumbass have to register now?
Or is this just another political right doublespeak whereby "subversive elements" means "them thar libruls, homos, and a-rabs?"
Posted by: Engima32 | February 10, 2010 9:45 AM
This is especially hilarious since it comes from South Carolina, what with the whole Nullification Crisis of 1832 and then being the first state to secede from the Union and all that...
Posted by: Imrryr | February 10, 2010 9:45 AM
Notice this requires registration of "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control...."
"Or." Not "and."
Wouldn't that require every Catholic priest and nun to register under the act, as a member of an "organization subject to foreign control"?
Posted by: flatlander100 | February 10, 2010 9:46 AM
Wouldn't every registered member of every political party in existence in that state need to file? Is there a single party that doesn't exist for the purpose of getting its members in to positions where they can control or conduct government?
Posted by: Abby Normal | February 10, 2010 9:50 AM
Wait - people who advocate the necessity of conducting government are subversive now?
Posted by: Dunc | February 10, 2010 9:52 AM
Hold on- to take one case out of the many covered by this language, a political party that practiced the duty to conduct the government because they were elected to a majority would qualify as a "subversive organization"? As would any such party that advocates the propriety of such?
Posted by: DaveL | February 10, 2010 9:52 AM
So does that include all Texans living in South Carolina?
Posted by: James Sweet | February 10, 2010 9:58 AM
@6---
If memory serves, back in the 1850s there was an anti-Catholic theory (one amongst many) that held that the Jesuits were storing weapons in caves underneath a certain American city and planned to seize control and let the Pope move there and relocate the Vatican (to escape Italian politics post-1848). (Samuel Morse's father was one of the believers, I think) The city was...Charleston. Maybe old fears in SC die hard...
Posted by: DesertHedgehog | February 10, 2010 10:00 AM
I hope there's a whole bunch of political science profs in South Carolina who, like I do, teach the Declaration of Independence, and ask students if the claim that "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [securing the rights of the people], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government..." I tell the students that this is a universal statement, not limited to 1776, so in fact I do teach the propriety of overthrowing government.
Leave it to South Carolina to show how much they hate America, by dissing the Declaration of Independence. Maybe we can file for Thomas Jefferson in absentia.
Posted by: James Hanley | February 10, 2010 10:03 AM
It's official: Sarah Palin's stupidity is contagious.
Posted by: CHV | February 10, 2010 10:05 AM
Damn, I want to move to SC just so I can hand over my $5 and be proudly registered.
Posted by: Bob O'H | February 10, 2010 10:21 AM
Is this law retrospective? How much is $10,000 in 1775 money*? - Dingo
===
* or in 1860 money?
Posted by: DingoJack | February 10, 2010 10:22 AM
I read the '... or any organisation subject to foreign control...' as also applying to public corporations, since at any given time there could be a majority of shareholders who are foreign. So I guess if you get a job in South Carolina you have to register.
Posted by: Craig | February 10, 2010 10:25 AM
Does this law apply only to residents, or do those of us who just have reason to travel through SC occasionally need to budget an extra fiver plus time to swing by the statehouse?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 10, 2010 10:26 AM
And if/when an ACLU lawyer challenges this, can she be busted if she hasn't registered and paid first?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | February 10, 2010 10:33 AM
Maybe some SC legislator is trying to get into the pants of a babe named Sara.
Posted by: Taz | February 10, 2010 10:52 AM
I'm sure the Sons of Confederate Veterans are lining up with their $5 bills to file. "The South will rise again!" Will vendors need to register to sell Stars & Bars T-shirts, or just the wearers?
Posted by: mingfrommongo | February 10, 2010 10:59 AM
this was already discussed in a few places, this is not a new law, it was originally created in the McCarthy years and has never been appealed.
Posted by: Uncle Bob | February 10, 2010 11:47 AM
What next?
Mandatory registration of firearms?
With a fee?
What is this world coming to?
Posted by: Troy | February 10, 2010 11:51 AM
@DingoJack #15,
In my memory of the history of the time, the U.S. was on the gold standard, with one ounce being $20.00. $10,000.00 back then would then be 500 gold ounces, which would be something like $500,000.00 nowadays. If you mean $10,000 current dollars, then using the same $1,000/oz. yields 10 ounces, which would be $200.00 1790 or 1860 dollars.
Of course, I could certainly be wrong about that. If so, I'm sure someone will be along to correct me soon enough.
:-)
Posted by: Shawn Smith | February 10, 2010 11:52 AM
Bah.
If you check out the link, that last quote leaves off an important clause:
So normal political parties are out.
At least we still have the comedy value of expecting such organizations to register because there's a law that says so.
Posted by: DaveL | February 10, 2010 11:53 AM
I have to wonder if they really think that it's 1918, when $5 was actually an expense difficult to part with, and people were actually referred to as "subversives."
Ironically, she and her bootlickers would be the first people charged under the law; that is, if the law had a chance of consistent application (yeah, that's a pretty astronomical "if").
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | February 10, 2010 11:53 AM
Uncle Bob informs us that: "...this is not a new law, it was originally created in the McCarthy years and has never been appealed." Well that makes A-OK then, doesn't it? - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | February 10, 2010 11:55 AM
If memory serves, back in the 1850s there was an anti-Catholic theory (one amongst many) that held that the Jesuits were storing weapons in caves underneath a certain American city and planned to seize control and let the Pope move there and relocate the Vatican (to escape Italian politics post-1848). (Samuel Morse's father was one of the believers, I think) The city was...Charleston."
Having lived in Charleston, the thought of caves underneath the city boggles the mind. The city is built on sandy and marshy ground at or below sea level. The houses don't have basements. A good rain plus high tide puts two feet of water in the streets.
Of course, none of this matters if the theory is irrational to begin with.
Posted by: Steve Reuland | February 10, 2010 12:01 PM
@26---
Laws like that were fairly common back in the '50s and '60s, and even in the 80s, when I had a TA job at grad school, I had to go and sign an oath to defend my home state against all enemies and subversives, domestic and foreign. I asked the nice lady at the university office if this meant I'd be manning a machine gun along the Sabine to keep out invading hordes from Beaumont or Galveston. She was *not* amused and lectured me on taking these things seriously.
Posted by: DesertHedgehog | February 10, 2010 12:06 PM
To answer my own (rhetorical*) question:
in 1775, $10,000 is equal to $344.17 using the CPI, or $20.46 using an unskilled wage.
in 1860, $10,000 is equal to $374.36 using the CPI, or $58.45 using an unskilled wage. (Source) - Dingo
---
* A rhetorical question - a question posed for a rhetorical purpose; a question meant to illustraute a point, not one meant for the audience to answer.
Posted by: DingoJack | February 10, 2010 12:08 PM
@27---
When I read about the caves-of-Charleston thing, I suspected that it wasn't a geology-friendly thing. I'd been to Charleston maybe once in those days, but somehow giant underground caverns just didn't seem likely. But somehow geology is the least crazy part of the idea.
Posted by: DesertHedgehog | February 10, 2010 12:11 PM
I don't know who sponsored the bill for this, but if it was a Republican I imagine they did it to put pressure on ACORN. After all, they consider ACORN to be a subversive organization.
Posted by: MarkusR | February 10, 2010 12:15 PM
Oddly, the form does not seem to have any "penalty of perjury" associated.
So, aside from it being puerile and immoral, what's to stop some mischievous-minded liberal from filling out the form on behalf a few dozen of their least-favorite right wing groups (such as the South Carolina Republican Party), adding a five dollar bill, and mailing it in?
Posted by: abb3w | February 10, 2010 12:19 PM
Can Todd Palin register as a guest when he visits?
Posted by: Dr X | February 10, 2010 12:24 PM
Ah, answer to my own question: SC state code Section 16-9-10 part A2: It is unlawful for a person to wilfully [SIC] give false, misleading, or incomplete information on a document, record, report, or form required by the laws of this State.
Pity.
Posted by: abb3w | February 10, 2010 12:26 PM
I believe it was James Louis Petigru who said of South Carolina that it was “too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum.”
Posted by: JPD | February 10, 2010 12:40 PM
Sounds like someone in SC has read Eric Frank Russell's _Wasp_.
Posted by: W. H. Heydt | February 10, 2010 12:48 PM
DingoJack,
Thanks for the clarification. I can be pretty dense, but this will help me work on that.
:-)
Posted by: Shawn Smith | February 10, 2010 4:23 PM
At least one anarchist group has already responded:
@Ed Brayton:
Not a good comparison. Most people working to overthrow the United States government or any subdivision thereof by "unlawful" means (what exactly are the lawful means for doing this?) are decent, nonviolent people. The sit-ins of the Civil Rights movement practiced unlawful civil disobedience, and while the article you've cited doesn't mention this, the text of the bill itself is contradictory enough that such civil disobedience could be construed to meet the definitions given.
Posted by: Miko | February 10, 2010 5:35 PM
When China outlawed Tibetan Lama's from reincarnating without government permission they didn't do it to stop reincarnations, they did it so they could arrest people who said they were reincarnations of Lamas.
Same with this I'd imagine.
Posted by: The Pink Ninja | February 10, 2010 5:44 PM
At Christian Exodus, we don't advocate the overthrow of the United States Government, nor of the State of South Carolina; but that the State of South Carolina, whole and intact, should enforce their secession from the Union by expelling the alien invaders from the Federal Government. The Feds are the ones that should have to register, inasmuch as they are the foreign government that is subverting the republican form of government in South Carolina.
Posted by: Keith Humphrey | February 10, 2010 6:04 PM
Keith-
LMAO. How'd that work out the first time?
Posted by: Ed Brayton | February 10, 2010 6:11 PM
Re Keith HKumphrey
General Sherman stuck it pretty good to South Carolina after his march through Georgia. To bad he didn't have nuclear weapons to really do a good job.
Posted by: SLC | February 10, 2010 6:27 PM
-- 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."
So, do all Republicans have to register individually, or does the Republican Party just do a bulk registration for all of them?
Posted by: Fifth Dentist | February 10, 2010 6:50 PM
Keith Humphrey @ 40 - The state of South Carolina has many proud Americans. The federal government of the USA has a constitutional obligation to defend the individual rights of those South Carolinians, even if their desire to remain a free people is comprised of a minority of South Carolina's citizens. The federal obligation to protect those Americans' individual rights extends against anyone who would attempt to deny them the free exercise of their constitutionally protected rights, including you and your group. That delegated power extends to using military force as we experienced with President Eisenhower sending in troops to Little Rock Arkansas to defend the individual rights of nine American high school students.
I have little doubt that most Americans would eagerly support an aggressive military campaign in your state should any group rise up against the USA and threaten the freedom of the citizens of SC who are not traitors like yourself.
Posted by: Michael Heath | February 10, 2010 7:52 PM
That is actually an allowed spelling of that word.
On topic: You guys go ahead and have your fun at SC's expense. Do you realize the sort of questions foreigners routinely have to answer (on application forms) in order to be granted entry into the US? Among other things, they ask you if you are traveling to the United States with the intention of engaging in criminal or terrorist activity. Also, if you have ever engaged in genocide.
Yeah, it sounds silly, but I expect it's intended to make it easier to throw undesirables out - practically anything you'd want to eject someone from the country for is covered, so if you get caught doing whatever, they can chuck you out for entering the country under false pretenses even if it's nothing particularly serious.
Same thing with the SC law - it's there so that if someone gets convicted of something that could reasonably be termed 'subversive', they get hit with a 10-year sentence even if the actual crime they're convicted of is trivial.
Posted by: konrad_arflane | February 10, 2010 8:14 PM
@ 28 -
Student loans back in the 60's required a document stating that the applicant had never been a member of any of a long list of Commie Pinko organizations (a bunch of them that existed during the Spanish Civil War) and that neither the applicant or any of his relatives had ever advocated overthrow of the Gubmint by force or violence. I got my $300 because I wasn't old enough for Spain, and because they hadn't got around to listing the SDS yet.
A student in Oklahoma supposedly told the Dean he couldn't sign, as his great-grandpa was Geronimo.
Posted by: Coragyps | February 10, 2010 8:24 PM
According to Eugene Volokh, Raw Story appears to be wrong -- the statute they cite was adopted in 1951, when you'd expect states to be adopting regrettable "subversive" laws in response to trumped-up fears of Communist invasion. It's not a brand-new law.
http://volokh.com/2010/02/10/did-south-carolina-pass-a-subversive-activities-registration-act-last-year/
Posted by: Chuck | February 10, 2010 11:25 PM
Abb3w, but if the information entered on the form filed on behalf of, say, a member of the Faux News crew were completely factual, based on their own recorded statements, would that be false, misleading or incomplete? Unless the form requires the signature of the subversive being registered, and video evidence of someone saying essentially, "I'm so-and-so, and I approve this message," isn't good enough.
I would get a big giggle out of putting together a five minute video of all the major talking heads saying things that clearly qualify for registration, combining it with a fully filled out form and $5, and sending a bunch to the appropriate state office. The thing that makes me sad, though, is that nothing beats the "watch me!" appeal of a VHS tape, people are too afraid of infection to put random CD-Rs in their computers.
Would so totally be worth the $5 + postage, though maybe not the brain damage caused by watching said pundits.
Must admit that my first thought was, "when have I ever worked for a multinational corporation that wasn't foreign owned?" Never thought that being a corporate drone would be what qualified me to register as a subversive.
Do many other states have similar McCarthy-era laws still on the books?
Posted by: Djinna | February 11, 2010 1:10 AM
Is there a resurgence in a Confederate movement? This *could* be those sneaky Yankees tryin' ta pull da wool o'er dem suthuner's eyez an' trik 'um into givn' up der secrets!
Posted by: MadScientist | February 11, 2010 5:51 AM
do you get a certificate attesting that you're registered? might be worth the $5 and a stamp. visons of libruls across the world registering just for fun.....i once knew some bad attitude folks (public defenders....) who paid the Texas marijuana "tax" just to get the cool certificate with the grim reaper.........suitable for framing, doncha know.
Posted by: payaso de la mar | February 11, 2010 12:47 PM
Keith Humphrey #40:
This bill defines a 'subversive organisation' as one that '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 seems to me that 'expelling the alien invaders from from the federal government' would fall under that, as the 'alien invaders' are representatives of the government of the United States.
As for the issue of secession, IANAL, but I was rather under the impression that States could not unilaterally declare secession, as ruled in Texas v White, 1869, where the actions of Texas, having declared secession from the Union in the run-up to the Civil War, were held to be 'utterly without operation in law' and 'absolutely null'. Therefore, if you truly want South Carolina to depart from the Union, your only two options are to persuade the rest of the States to let South Carolina go, or to advocate for open rebellion and revolt - which is exactly the kind of thing this bill covers.
Posted by: Zmidponk | February 11, 2010 6:16 PM
These are all the comments of subversives and as a resident of SC I want everyone of you to pony up $5.00 now. The state needs the money and we know who you are so don't try and slide on this; register now and beat the rush.
Posted by: Sam | February 16, 2010 6:51 PM