The Island of Rationality and the First Amendment

Welcome to First Amendment-a-palooza, where headliners Sarah Isgur and David French play the classics like: “Are license plates government speech?” and “Three cheers for Citizens United,” as well as “Owning a copy of Mein Kampf means you’re an idiot, but it’s still private speech.” The Agenda: –Immigration issues –Listener mail bag Show Notes: Order Sarah’s book here. Advisory Opinions is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes—click here. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here. Sarah Isgur is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in northern Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2019, she had worked in every branch of the federal government and on three presidential campaigns. She’s also a ABC News contributor and the author of Last Branch Standing, a deep dive into the inner workings of the Supreme Court. When Sarah is not hosting podcasts or writing newsletters, she’s probably sending uplifting stories about spiders to Jonah, who only pretends to love all animals. David French is a columnist for the New York Times. He’s a former senior editor of The Dispatch. He’s the author most recently of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Music 0:00 [gun cocking] You ready? Music 0:02 I was born ready. Music 0:06 [upbeat music] Sarah Isgur 0:19 Welcome to Advisory Opinions. I'm Sarah Isgur. That's David French. Well, David, if we did Crime-a-palooza last time, we're gonna do First Amendment-a-palooza this time, all in honor of Lollapalooza being in your hometown right now, your new hometown of Chicago. And w- I mean, there's a lot to cover. Most of it's like, is this government speech? We're gonna do, like, game show style. Is this government speech? And what happens if it's government speech? Do we then just have this, like, beautiful proliferation of diverse opinions and thoughts and tolerance, or do we not have nice things? David French 0:57 [laughs] Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like