Well, this was really something.

By around 1130 this morning, there were a good 500 people gathered at Millennium Park in Chicago. That was the police estimate, anyway... looked like a lot more to me, but they're the experts.

Anyway, it was obvious from the outset that there would be no trouble—tons of police officers and not a grape-shirt in sight—so I placed my Navy Jack at stack arms and went to work, helping to get set up and working the megaphone to keep the crowd chanting.

I was scheduled to speak, so maybe I should have preserved my voice. In any case, I was a little hoarse by the time I mounted the makeshift podoim. Here's a video--audio, really--of the speech. Thanks to StreetWise Pundit for taking the video, and double thanks for the very kind remarks!

The text of the speech is below the video:

FREE MEN

On June 28, 2005, a shepherd boy surprised four Navy SEALs high in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. By the end of the day the men were engaged in a running firefight against a small army of Taliban fighters. Lieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen led 15 other commandos on a daring rescue mission that ended in disaster when a lucky Taliban shot took their helicopter out with a rocket-propelled grenade. The SEALs rallied and accomplished their mission, despite the heaviest casualites suffered by an American special warfare team since World War Two. Erik was a classmate of mine, and a legend among legendary men.

Erik Kristensen did not die on an Afghan mountaintop so that politicians at home could consolidate their power by bailing out the United Auto Workers!

On December 6, 2006, Major Megan McClung was escorting Newsweek journalists into downtown Ramadi when a massive improvised explosive device detonated under her Humvee, instantly killing Megan and the other two occupants of the vehicle. Megan was the first female Marine officer to be killed in the Iraq war, and the first female graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy to be killed in action, ever. She was a classmate, a shipmate, and an old friend.

Megan McClung did not perish in a hail of shrapnel in order to guarantee the voting rights of illegal aliens and dead people!

On May 10, 2007, Major Doug Zembiec entered a dark Baghdad alley leading a unit of Iraqi forces whom he had trained. Insurgents ambushed, and through the hail of enemy gunfire strode Doug Zembiec, the Lion of Fallujah, directing his men to safe positions and returning fire. A bullet cut Doug down at the height of the battle, and on the radio his men reported four wounded, one martyred. Doug was a classmate, a heroic warrior, and a towering inspiration to the Marines with whom he served.

Doug Zembiec did not lay down his life so that politicians might trade the bread from his own child's mouth for the vote of a stranger!

Thomas Jefferson once said that the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants. But this is not the only tree in the garden of nations! Close upon it grows Fascism, where the State controls the means of production, and free men bend to its will. Not far behind lies Socialism, where the State OWNS the means of production, and free men become slaves. The blood of American Patriots is the very essence of national treasure. Will you spend it wisely and nourish Liberty, or will you step aside and allow Statists to feed?

Ladies and gentlemen... Americans... give me a show of hands. Who here has a brother or a sister standing a watch at sea, trading precious months and years with wives and children for the greater good of G-d and Country? Who has a son or a daughter standing right NOW on foreign soil, a human shield between America and her enemies?

America, do we commit our sons to battle so that Barney Frank can dictate how American businessmen should ply their trade?

NO!

Do we commit our sons to battle so that Nancy Pelosi can force a New Hampshire farmer to buy an abortion for a crack whore in Detroit?

NO!

Do we commit our sons to battle so that Barack Obama might take the fruit of our labor and the sweat from our brow, give it to strangers, and call it justice?

NO!

Are we slaves, or are we FREE MEN?

FREE MEN prefer the clear-eyed risk of failure and the rare triumph of success to the condescending protection of the mighty. FREE MEN prefer the honest fruits of their own labor to the pillage of their fellow man. FREE MEN keep their own counsel; FREE MEN make their own decisions; and FREE MEN pay their own way!

This debate is not about health care. It is not about bailouts, nor green jobs, nor whether Government in any form has the capacity to stimulate a national economy. This debate is about nothing less than the soul of America, the heart of the shining city on the hill, the shocking, shattering, transcendent idea that certain rights of Man are given by G-d, and that no government--NO government--has or will ever have the right to take them away so long we remain a nation of FREE MEN.

We do not reject the notion that a righteous man should help his brother in need. But we DO reject--by the blood of Patriots like Erik and Megan and the Lion of Fallujah we utterly, categorically DENY--that Government has the right to FORCE righteousness upon FREE MEN. This is nothing less than the act of a Tyrant, and upon the bones of my forefathers I swear that so long as a Patriot’s blood flows through my veins, I will remain a FREE MAN and Tyranny in America shall not prevail!