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Subversives In South Carolina Mostly Safe
sabt-pestnu sends in an update on our story about South Carolina and subversives. "According to Eugene Volokh, the Raw Story article has got it backwards. Westlaw says that the cited statute dates back to 1951, when a lot of anti-Communist statutes were being enacted nationwide. What brought Raw Story's attention to it may be that South Carolina is once again trying to repeal the archaic law. And in any event, a half-century-old case (Yates vs. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957)) took most of the teeth out of such laws."
Mostly harmless.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
How do I withdraw my application?
How is this law, real or not, any different than thousands of other laws on the books in various states that aim to make something illegal by requiring that you register your 'group', business or service?
Anyone wanting to do something contrary to the morals of the standing legislators is likely to fall foul of one or more laws with the same miasmal qualities. For instance, look at sex laws; they are nothing but attempts to stop 'subversive' elements of local society, or at least make it so you can fine them if they do those 'subversive' things, and generally make them unwelcome in the community.
I say we should hang those that enact such laws if it were not so hypocritical ....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
What's the point of being subversive if it's not forbidden?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Very often laws on the books stop mattering not because they are repealed by the legislature but because they cease to get enforced or get enforced very rarely. The classic example of this is laws against pornography which still exists in many jurisdictions but by and large don't matter since almost no one is prosecuted. Unfortunately, you then get every few years someone like John Ashcroft in charge who decides that prosecuting porn makers should be a high priority of the federal government and then assigns multiple agents full time to prosecute videos made of consenting adults. So getting rid of obsolete legislation when one can is a good idea since it can't come back and bite you when an extremist manages to get elected or appointed to a relevant position.
Westlaw says that the cited statute dates back to 1951, when a lot of anti-Communist statutes were being enacted nationwide.
When I went to college in the 70s, I had a number of jobs at the same state U I was attending. All University employees, including me, were required to sign an oath that they were "not a member of the Communist Party or any other organization which advocates the overthrow of the Government by force or violence". Naturally, I had to wonder what kind of namby-pamby insurrectionists Moscow was infiltrating our way, if they were willing to violently overthrow the government, but not lie about their willingness to do so!
This is not quite a dead issue. Quite recently, a Quaker hired to teach remedial math at Cal State East Bay lost her job after somebody noticed that she'd amended the mandatory oath she'd signed when she was hired. (The oath requires the signer to "support and defend" the California and U.S,. constitutions; not wanting to violate her religious principles, she'd inserted the word "nonviolently".) She was eventually rehired after the usual legal squabble, which ended with the state AG ruling that the unamended oath did not obligated the signer to do military service!
Al Queda of South Carolina has declared a victory!
Prosecutor: Tell the court why you think he is a traitor to this country.
Miss America: I think Mr. Mellish (Woody Allen's character) is a traitor to this country because his views are different from the views of the president and others of his kind. Differences of opinion should be tolerated, but not when they're too different. Then he becomes a subversive mother.
- "Bananas" (1971)
While McCarthy's investigations were quite vile and unconsitutional, they were not witch hunts. A witch hunt implies looking for something that's not there. Oddly enough, most of the evidence that came out after the fact confirmed a great deal of those he investigated to in fact be communists.
Lawrence v. Texas (2003) threw out laws that banned private sex acts between consenting adults.
Even after 2003, there is still anti-gay discrimination when it came to consenting acts between teenagers compared to the same acts between consenting heterosexual couples:
1) I think some states still have laws on the books that make gay sex a felony, those laws are theoretically enforceable against a 17-year-old gay couple.
2) Likewise, in states where there is no Romeo and Juliet law, straight couples can have sex all they want if they get married first. Gay couples, well, good luck getting a marriage license outside of a handful of states. Even when the laws are non-discriminatory, the application can be - some prosecutors may look the other way when an 18 year old man has sex with a 17 year old almost-woman, but they'll be happy to throw the book at an 18-year-old man with a 17-year-old male youth. Or the prosecutor may not be biased but the parents of the girl may be willing to not press charges but the homophobic parents of the 17 year old boy may insist on it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Mod parent down! We don't allow reality here!!!!
You are playing a definition game. McCarthy wasn't simply looking for Communists, he was looking for a threat to the American way of life. Oddly enough, it wasn't there.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The government should just stop recognizing marriage.
(the big downside there would likely be companies that stopped extending health benefits to families of employees. I can't think of any other real big ones (most other stuff can easily be handled with contracts))
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
the problem is that you would be outed, ostracized and otherwise derided
you defeat communism because it is ideologically inferior. you don't defeat communism with thuggery. let communists speak openly and without fear of reprisals with their views. and let them fall and fail on the incoherence of their flawed ideology
unfortunately, we see the same braying thuggery "socialism! socialism! bark! bark!" today as in the mccarthy era. as if socialism is anything but medicare, the interstate highway system etc.: there are plenty of times where socialism, such as with healthcare, just makes the most fucking sense. but opposition to issues (some issues, not all issues) where the socialist approach is superior amounts to nothing but the braying of sheep
so much of opposition to simple coherent logical progress amounts to zombified hordes of americans whipped up into unthinking opposition by demagogues and corporate shills, when if they actually thought about the fucking issues for a second, they would see socialism works far better for them than, for example, the bastard healthcare system we currently have. they decry government death panels, when currently they have corporations, whose job is to bring healthy financial returns to investors, rather than deliver quality healthcare to themselves. in other words, we currently have corporate death panels. fact: healthcare has infinite cost, and we all die eventually. so there is a triage of resources, no matter what the system we choose. there always will be. so would you rather that triage be done by a transparent government whose mandate is to keep you alive? or an opaque corporation whose job is to pay dividends? so why the hell do so many americans defy universal healthcare?
oh, you say the government will be an unwieldy bureaucracy? have you actually tried dealing with the ridiculous dance of paperwork between doctors, hospitals, hmos, etc? its MORE expensive and bureaucratic, the current system we have. socialized universal healthcare is not perfect, its simply BETTER than the current retarded system we have. admit it, and lose your ignorant fear of the scary word "socialism", and choose the superior option
"socialism! socialism! baaah baaah!"
its exactly the same as ignorant peasants whipped into an emotional irrational frenzy by religious madmen that there are witches about, doing evil things! and all they do is wind up killing some of their neighbors and friends, the same as they do when they oppose universal healthcare. the opposition to universal healthcare is the same as witchhunts in colonial times and the same as the mccarthy era- its not based on logic and reason, but based on fear of the unknown
kneejerk fearmongering of the word "socialist". without any respect as to logic behind the issues involved. that's the "debate" we have in the usa right now. pathetic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In reply to your sig. What about Zionism and Islam? Are you just a religion basher or do you just descriminate against Christians?
As others have pointed out, BR would not have had much exposure to Islam, nor would he have considered them important. From a more modern perspective, though, Zionism doesn't count since it's not a religion, and Islam is currently floundering around, trying to re-fight the battles which Christianity lost centuries ago. Islam isn't "the principal enemy of moral progress" because it's so ass-backwards that they don't even get counted in discussions about morality. Kinda like how the Quakers aren't "enemies of technological progress" because they're such complete luddites that nobody cares what they think.
As for Christianity, the situation's changed a bit since Russel's time, but not enough. The brand of Christianity practiced in most of the western world is generally benign, with the obvious exception of the US. On the other hand, the brand of Christianity being practiced in developing nations is just as regressive as Islam, and even the benign varieties tend to cause harm by teaching people to blindly accept dogmatic statements.
The witch hunt analogy is very appropriate. In Salem, etc. they persecuted witches (or anyone who wasn't Bible thumpin protestant or they just didn't like). Didn't matter if the witches/communists were actually bad people doing bad things. The possibility that you might be a communist/witch was enough to get you or your career burned at the stake depending on the century. So yes, McCarthy was on a witch hunt. The morality and wisdom of such a hunt is left as an exercise for the reader.
The defendant gives money to the poor and obeys the ten commandments - he must be a filthy commie!
When you expand the definition of Communist to anyone you can harrass if it gets you closer to the White House as McCarthy did then that is a lot of people. He was nothing but an opportunistic scumbag that would have got furthur if he hadn't decided to pretend that the US armed forces from General Marshall down were Communists.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of /.?
Calling Quakers complete Luddites doesn't make sense; they've got no problems with technology as long as you don't let it distract you from living an authentic life. Amish generally think post-1700s technology gets in the way. But they're both "Historic Peace Churches", along with the Mennonites, and both traditionally wore plain clothes and big hats back in the 1700s. In the case of the Quakers, the hats were because England had a beastly climate, and then many of them moved to North America; I suspect it was pretty much the same with the Amish moving from the Germanies.
On the other hand, Quakers never did adopt the American technology called televangelism. A TV show with a bunch of people sitting around quietly for an hour just doesn't haul in cash, even if there is the exciting part at the end where the shake hands and then the clerk reads the announcements for the week, and maybe there's a potluck lunch or some coffee. It can be deeply meaningful if you're there, but you've got to be there...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If membership is compulsory, membership is meaningless.
Uh, what? "Quaker" is to The Society of Friends what "Mormon" is to the Church of Latter Day Saints; a colloquial term for church members. I suppose that some Quakers out there might be offended by the term, but I've never heard of it, and there are actually a decent number of them in my area.
As for preaching against their fellow man... no, not really. The Quakers are pretty well known for teaching peace, tolerance, equality and universal love. They were one of the first groups to outright condemn slavery in the United Sates, and also one of the first to take direct action against it (Quaker craftsmen, particularly shipbuilders, refused to make anything that would be used for the purpose of slavery, including those used for the slave trade; they also ran many of the stops on the underground railroad, and often provided material assistance to escaped blacks once in the North). They were also one of the first modern sects to allow female ministers, and have long supported and worked for equal rights for men and women.
They're also shockingly badass for radical pacifists, throughout their history they have maintained a reputation for being downright fearless when it comes to issues of faith vs. the powers that be. It took some serious stones to tell the king of England that you will not remove your hat in his presence because the only authority which you respect is the Lord, even more when the circumstances are such that the king is pissed you're not following the state religion in which he is the voice of God.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Except, you know, Jefferson Davis wasn't President of the United States.
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
"You are playing a definition game. McCarthy wasn't simply looking for Communists, he was looking for a threat to the American way of life. Oddly enough, it wasn't there."
Actually, yes it was. It just wasn't where he was looking.
McCarthy was an opportunist who destroyed a lot of lives while running a witch hunt for communists - more or less taking what the FBI was doing and running rampant with it. And, up until the mid-1990s, the history books didn't have the information the FBI did from the NSA. So, accepted history was that it was only a witch hunt, and the wasn't really a communist threat.
And then, in the mid-1990s, the NSA declassified the Venona intercepts.
In fact, there WAS a serious Soviet infiltration of the United States government at some of the highest levels. It was detected because of duplication of some of the one-time pads (an otherwise unbreakable type of code) that allowed some Soviet intelligence communications to be decoded, and revealed the spy rings.
You can read about it here: http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/venona/index.shtml
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Well, that's the thing - as Venona indicates, they didn't go undetected. In fact, a lot of spies were caught because of Venona. The Rosenbergs, for example. And, some Soviet activities had a definite impact on sabotaging U.S. foreign policy - as I recall, one of the reasons China was able to go communist was that either the U.S. Treasury or State department had a high-level Soviet spy who made certain that funds earmarked for supporting Chiang Kai-Shek never arrived, allowing Mao Zedong to succeed.
When you start looking at the intelligence picture of the Cold War, particularly in the late 40s, 50s, and early 60s, you see VERY interesting things happening. And you have to look very carefully to see it. One of the things to keep in mind is that an intelligence success tends to be secret - it's the intelligence failures that are public.
(Modern examples: Bin Laden's satellite phone being tapped by the NSA and used to foil Al Qaeda operations up to 2000 vs. September 11, 2001.)
Wikipedia has an article that's a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Soviet_and_Russian_espionage_in_the_United_States
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
As a Bible-believing aspiring Christian (one who aspires to being worthy of being called a follower of Christ, not one who claims to have attained that aspiration):
I can agree with a lot of what you have to say - almost all of it really. The failures and weaknesses that people should be most concerned with are their own, which they can control, not other people's, which they can't. (And of course that assumes that we agree with one another what constitutes a weakness or failure in the first place, which, even among Christians, we often don't).
The greatest commandments for any Christian, according to Christ Himself, are: (a) to love God with all our being and (b) to love our neighbor as ourselves. This implies tolerance. It implies that we should not attempt to use force, including the force of a state, to inflict our will upon others. It implies that we can disagree and still be friends and still relate to one another. It implies a moral standard that is more concerned with love than with rigid dogma. It does not imply that we turn a blind eye to sin - especially our own - but rather, that we do all we can with God's help to deal with our own, then offer help (NOT judgment or condemnation) to those around us who may want it.
Now, there is a bit more to Christianity than law. We find that we are unable to keep the law. None of us is free from sin in one sort or another. Few if any of us are totally sexually pure. Few of us are truly un-judgmental. Few if any of us always live up to even our own moral standards, much less God's. So we find that, even if we understand and try to follow God's Law of Love, we still will fall short, and thus will find ourselves in need of His forgiveness. And we find in Scripture that this forgiveness is available to all those who trust in Christ. That is not the same as implying that all those who claim to be Christians possess this forgiveness and the eternal life that follows . . . nor that all those who do not so claim are outside of it. But it is wise to seek it where we know it may be found.
Much of this is summed up in the story of Christ forgiving the woman taken in adultery, whom the "religious" leaders of the day were about to stone to death, in accordance with their understanding of Mosaic law, but also in total hypocrisy, as she had done nothing they had not also done: "Neither do I condemn you;" He said, "go, and sin no more."
I am horrified by how badly many "Christians" treat many members of the LGBT community, how many people get hurt as a result, and how badly the Christian message gets distorted in the process. It isn't "do whatever you want and God will look away" and neither is it "do exactly what we say or God will burn you." It is that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life." And we are ALL sinners, so we don't have any right to judge anyone else, but we have been given the privilege and responsibility to live according to what we know of God's love (as well as His justice), and also to invite (NOT force) others who are willing to do the same if they wish.
Nonaggression works!
"to love our neighbor as ourselves."
Seems to tell me specifically that I should enforce my moral code on others, and has nothing to do with tolerance.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Spirituality is about self improvement. Religion is about organization and power. Pretty simple really.
I did not alter Russell by adding [and Islam] or saying Religion, I quoted Russell in context. I read "and Islam" myself today, but quotation is quotation.
I'm confidant that Russell quote is particularly poignant because every so often people like you object, but they never mention Martin Luther King or Jimmy Carter.
Organization can obviously be used for good. Religion succeeds when Religion has been more democratic than government. Religion usually fails the modern word by being less democratic. Oh, Real democracy requires representation as noted during the Boston tea party, btw.
Afaik, Jimmy Cater is the only living man who both has held the reigns of power and is truly an idealized Christian. I'll change my sig when I hear him give a logical defense of religion. I've only ever heard him defend spirituality, not religion. MLK might've given religion an argument, but you know what happened to him, and you know by whom.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell