Leadership Quote by Rick Boucher

That sentence is what political self-protection sounds like when it’s trying to pass as principle. Boucher starts with a small civics hymn - “I defend peoples’ right” - then immediately builds a firewall: “but I have not undertaken that practice myself.” The structure matters. He leads with rights talk to signal tolerance and constitutional seriousness, then pivots to personal distance to reassure anxious voters, donors, and party elders that he’s not one of “those people.” It’s coalition management in 23 words.

The key phrase is “in a lawful manner,” a tidy qualifier that sounds neutral but does real work. It narrows the defense to behavior that already clears the state’s gatekeeping, avoiding the messier implication that some laws are unjust or that civil disobedience can be legitimate. That’s not an accident; it’s a way to appear libertarian on the surface while staying firmly inside institutional boundaries.

Subtext: I’m not here to police your private life, but I’m also not going to let your private life stick to me. The careful vagueness - “that” and “that practice” - suggests a topic that was culturally charged at the time: something like drug use, sex work, same-sex relationships, or another stigmatized behavior politicians are routinely asked to disavow. He refuses the moral condemnation, but he also refuses solidarity.

In context, it’s the classic “live and let live, just not too close” posture: rights affirmed, identification denied, risk managed.