If you’re planning on overthrowing the government and live in South Carolina, you’re now required to register as a subversive, informing officials of your intentions. You are also required to pay a $5 filing fee and fill out a form [pdf] . Failure to do so could result in a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

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.”

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.”

Officials claim that the law is aimed at Islamic terrorists, but is, naturally, broadly written so as to encompass nearly anyone that could be classified as subversive.

How many tea-baggers and Glenn Beck followers are going to register? They have been calling for the overthrow of the government for the past year.

Apparently, we have not learned from that little incident in Germany 60 years ago. South Carolina has also forgotten that the United States of America was founded by subversives who overthrew the government in power. I guess we should all register.