From the country’s seventh oldest settlement in New Hampshire – Dover – route sixteen will take you to ninety-five, from there you hop on one, and from there you hop on ninety-three, all south, and eventually you can find your way to the Government Square Exit. From there on out, you’re in no man’s land and you’re on your own in Big Dig and Duck Boat territory. It’s a place of wacky accents (pahk the cah neah the bah) and strange lingo (wicked pissah kehd) where movies are shot for audiences who ask, “Do they really swear that much?” and no, we don’t swear that much, we swear more. Out here in the wild, wild east, we use the “f” word the way other parts of the country say “uh” and “um” and we drink beer like it’s dirty water and if you don’t keep up we’ll let you know you don’t fit in. And if you have a problem with that you probably won’t come back but you’ll wish you could. There are dozens of cities you can make it in if you can’t make it in Boston. Go to those places. We won’t miss you because we don’t need you.

On the Commons, by the Rotunda, we swarmed like ants where there’s honey to quaff and no magnifying glasses to burn us. The flags of Kek fluttered next to the stars and stripes, and Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, Militia Men from New York and Connecticut and beyond, stood proudly by with kids sporting braces, misfits pounding shields carved from Rubbermaids, and hecklers and jokers and social pariahs and patriots who all showed up to take a stand for the first amendment. Free speech means saying what you will, consequences be damned, and damned they were. No one did anything to stop us and for a while then and since it felt and feels like we were winning because, in truth, we really won.

The antifas stood by on Flagstaff Hill at the foot of the Soldiers and Sailors monument, chanting their anti-America, anti-capitalist, anti-cop, anti-free-speech jargon as the police stood by and protected them from the Island of Misfit Toys below at the stage. Both factions were itching for a fight: Sports helmets, batons disguised as flag poles, weighted fighting gloves, shoulder pads, elbow pads, shin guards on forearms were all on display but no fight was had. Violence wasn’t necessary that day the way it was when fisticuffs unfolded at the Battle of Berkeley, when Based Stickman made his mark on the world wide web and against skull of an anti-fascists fascist.

By a quarter after one, barely an hour after the start of the event, the Boston Antifa were declaring victory on Zuckerberg’s social media soap box. By four in the afternoon, the liberty faction outnumbered the spineless, joyless cadre of miserable basement dwellers ten to one. The antifas chanted “na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye” as we took to the Freedom Trail to shut down half the city under cover of a courteous police escort. But for all the antifas’ social media prowess, no one in their ranks seemed aware the march was planned from the start, we were leaving with or without their disapproval, another insult for the incessantly insulted crybabies and snowflakes and gender-benders of the leftist freakshow.

When we returned we found their hill empty and we took it in force. We stormed to the top and waved a-okay hand signs and chanted “we took the hill” until ragged throats could pronounce nothing more than semi-intelligible utterances of exultation. The antifas call us Nazis but there were no swastikas to signify the triumph of our will. They call us fascists but there was no clamoring for greater state controls over the economy to make the trains run on time. Ask any one of us who were there about Amtrak and we’d say it should go the way of Conrail, that is, it should be privatized. Ask any of us who were there and we’d tell you that the only fascism on site left with its tail between its legs like a scalded dog.

Punches were ready to be thrown but, with one exception, not a single fist flew. The perpetual battle to preserve the sacrosanct tenet of the first amendment is a war of attrition. All we had to do and all we must continue to do is show up, make use of freedom of speech, and wait. Show up with a spirit of optimism as we did on the Commons, outmatch with love the hate of the Left, and bide your time. Good things come to those who recognize patience as a virtue. Victory will be won again and again, as it was won last Saturday, by merely showing your face and showing your backbone with words and presence. Victory will be won not with fists first but with the determination to celebrate and honor our rights and traditions while being prepared as a last resort to physically defend the happy heritage passed down to us by larger-than-life forebears.

The spirit of victory can and will win without a fight. I know because I was there and I saw it happen. I helped make it happen and I will again. I have no hate for our enemies. Pity to be sure, but not hate. I have only love for country, countrymen, and for the common bonds that bring us together as one.