“You can just walk in.”

That’s what I told a friend I took with me to Madison a couple of years ago. We were wandering around the morning after a conference, and since it was Sunday there was nothing much to do, so we walked up to the Capitol Square. “Can we go inside?” he asked, looking at the Capitol building.

The doors were unlocked. We took that to mean yes. We walked right in, into that magnificent marble and stone building you’ve all seen in videos over and over again by now. No metal detectors, no searches of our bags, no dogs sniffing at us. We didn’t have to take our shoes off. We didn’t need to sign anything. Our IDs stayed in our wallets. Our coats stayed on.

We wandered the halls, basically in silence, in a self-guided version of a tour schoolchildren around the state take every year. Hearing rooms and official offices were locked, and some hallways were roped off. A few guards stood around, but there’s really nothing to steal. You’d need a jackhammer to boost the