South Carolina’s Legislature has outdone itself. Last year it passed the “Subversive Activities Registration Act.” That law is now on the books.
It is one of the stupidest, most worthless pieces of legislation to come along in a longtime.
If you want to overthrow the United States and come to South Carolina, then you have thirty days to register with South Carolina officials.
I kid you not.
As if there are not enough federal and state laws on the books to prosecute anyone planning a terrorist act, South Carolina wasted the time, precious fibers from a wonderful tree and some ink on a ridiculous law that will never be complied with and never used.
Can you imagine trying to prosecute someone before a jury because they did not register as a subversive? If there is hard evidence to prove a subversive plot, failure to register is the least thing anyone is going to worry about.
So just what is a “subversive activity?”
Those fine lawmakers in Columbia state that anyone who “transacts any business or attempts to influence political action in this State” through “force or violence or other unlawful means” with the intent of “controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States” needs to register.
Just for good measure “business includes, but is not limited to, speaking engagements.”
Why cannot South Carolina just use this language and make these things illegal with a 10-year prison sentence and $25,000 fine? Instead, they have to appear as buffoons who think Osama bin Laden is going to be concerned that he needs to register if he shows up in The Palmetto State.
Did I say there is a $5 filling fee?
Ah, but there is a loophole in this well-though out law. All subversive organizations must register within 30 days of arriving in South Carolina. So if a terrorist can do a dirty deed within 30 days, then he can forget having to register.
In case you plan on staying in South Carolina for 30 days or longer and have any subversive ideas, here is the form to fill out.
I particularly like the question that asks the submitter to include his organizations bylaws and to identify all other members of the organization in South Carolina. Are the politicians dumber than a stump in this state or what?
I also find it ironic that the first state to secede from the Union, South Carolina, pushes a trash law like this. If only Lincoln and the federal government had just sent a form like this to all the southern states, all the subversives could have been rounded up and the Civil War avoided.
If you live in South Carolina, here is your government in action.
