If you& #39;re reading this thread and you& #39;ve not seen SovCit/FotL before, all the stuff about crowns and oaths and homophones seems random. What holds it all together (apart from self-interest) is an anxiety about the ground of political authority and the ontology of law. https://twitter.com/sexenheimer/status/1259308704253394944">https://twitter.com/sexenheim...

It is, again, self-serving above all else. But what they play on is the worry that law might be merely conventional. So there& #39;s always this appeal to a & #39;real& #39; law or a & #39;real& #39; state, the apparent/operative one being a fake or simulacrum.

Which is why it doesn& #39;t really matter how often the courts reject this stuff: if you think there& #39;s a & #39;real& #39; law independent of how courts interpret statute and precedent, you can go on believing the courts have gotten it wrong 100% of the time.

Even the weird maritime punning stuff comes back to this: & #39;here& #39;s what words *really* mean!& #39; Hence the obsession with Black& #39;s Law Dictionary: the idea that words have fixed, metaphysical essences that have been lost in common usage.

There& #39;s a genuinely interesting philosophical question at the heart of the SovCit/FotL worldview - what is the source of state authority? - but it goes off the rails pretty much immediately, with wacky consequences.

Anyway, something sort of on this I wrote a few years ago. Philosophers need to get in on this topic I reckon. https://theconversation.com/divine-astroturf-should-anti-vaccinationists-get-their-own-church-14858">https://theconversation.com/divine-as...