Reality beats The Onion.

It’s hard to believe that this was not an Onion article, but it’s not: No joke: South Carolina now requires ’subversives’ to register.

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.”

I really shouldn’t add anything since this parodies itself, but wouldn’t ALL political parties, since they “advise the necessity and propriety of [themselves] controlling the government of the United States,” be considered subversive as well?

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