They’re having a big ceremony to remove the flag at the State House in South Carolina today.

I was sort of hoping everyone would wake up one morning and it would have been magically replaced with  a Big Blue Marble Flag. A god’s-eye view of things.

And they’re singing “Na na, na na, na na na na.  Hey hey, goodbye.”  I was  sort of hoping for “Come on, people now.  Smile on your brother.  Everybody get together. Try to love one another right now.”

And I’d really like not to see the rebel flag and the swastika flag displayed on pickup trucks any more.  Funny how the people who display them often also have them tattooed on.

Of course, we can say any darn thing we please.  Free speech covers just about anything except yelling “fire” in a theatre.

And, of course,  we want to remember, accurately, our history.  And learn from it.  It’s often said that those who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it.

Disclaimer:  This is mostly about sex, about which I’m no expert.

Everybody used to think Nash’s quip was clever.  Nowadays, not so much.

Seduction used to be a game a man played to get a reluctant woman to have sex with him.  Women were reluctant, not because they didn’t want to have sex, but because they had a greater price to pay.  Disgrace, disease, pregnancy, loss of the much-needed opportunity to marry a “decent” man.

These days, sex is a more equal opportunity event. Well, good.  We like to think everyone gets to decide when, where, and why to have sex. (I wish!)

Given that, why do you suppose a handsome, famous, rich, charming, man like Bill Cosby didn’t just say,”Would you like to join me in my hotel room and have sex later this evening?”  Because he did not, he is no longer charming.  He is a creep.

The 1st Amendment speaks to the right of religious freedom — and — this is very significant — it includes the right to practice no religion.

Now, we have the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The first law by that name was passed by Congress in 1993 by huge, bipartisan margins.

The R.F.R.A. established a balancing test that remains in effect: When someone complains that a federal law substantially burdens his or her free exercise of religion, the government must show that it has a compelling interest in applying that law.

Okay.  Your religious practice or lack thereof is none of my business and none of the government’s either.  That sounds right.  Except peyote was a problem at one point.  And the failure to seek medical help for a sick child. Or old men marrying little girls. Or a bunch of them.

I do wish that people who want to “share” their beliefs with me in an attempt at conversion (generally referred to as “an invitation”) would not knock on my door or leave their literature there.

One such group in my elderly mother’s town kept bothering her until one day she just opened the door to them when they interrupted her getting out of her bath and she’d only gotten as far as getting her underwear on.  They never returned.

Baked goods have been an issue this year.  You might think a baker could decline to bake a cake for certain celebrations.  You know, if I went into a bakery to order a cake for a bris and the baker said the idea of a circumcision celebration creeped her out, I think I’d just calmly take my business elsewhere.  Or if it were a christening cake and the baker was opposed to infant baptism.  Or if it was for a Muslim circumcision party at which little boys are seven years old really freaked out the baker  .  .  .  well, you get the idea.

Of course, these are things The Founders never had to consider.  And they are things that I never considered many years ago.

Over time, I am happy to say, I have considered many new things, and I hope I continue to do so.

I’m pretty sure if I was a baker and was tasked with baking a cake I’d never baked before, I would be delighted to come up with something.