The plot of Miracle on 34th Street is wild. Santa Claus is the rightful king, speaking Dutch is a magic power, Quaker-level honesty gets you institutionalized, and the US Postal System is the legitimate judiciary. Sounds true.
USPS as Judiciary is plausible. They have to know what's going on materially. The Army has to know this stuff but only in wartime, the Courts are under NO similar performance pressure.
Also as the movie points out lower-court judges are often elected & therefore posturing. USPS is more disinterested.
The Achaemenids had a postal system, the Athenians had trials, reading Herodotus in college Freshman year it became clear to my Seminar that post-World-Wars America sees itself more as Persia than as Athens.
But it's unclear from Wikipedia (still haven't actually seen the movie) whether the movie portrays the USPS's ability to keep track of who's who and where as the outcome of a lawful causal process or just another mysterious magical power like speaking the truth or Dutch.
Probably an accurate association between speaking Dutch and speaking the Truth, both of which are magic powers only the true king can have. Santa Claus as the King of Calvinism.
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