To defend free speech does not mean you cannot criticise how others exercise it. The very opposite, if anything. With weaker legal restrictions on, say, racist insults there should be stronger social sanctions – criticism, debate, counter-arguments. It’s called manners, and when were conservatives ever against those? It’s just that I believe we are safer when manners are determined organically, by free people freely talking things over, than by an elite using the organs of the state to punish opinions they do not like and silence people they like even less.
Considering the source, I’m reminded of La Rouchefoucauld. Nonetheless, Bolt stands out as the epitome of a mannerly conservative: unfailingly respectful to his patrons and superiors, equally contemptuous of his enemies and other inferiors. Including those he purports to inform and enlighten.