This is an opinion column.

Thank goodness, with all the evils of this world, Alabama has its heroes.

Oh, sure, our ills plague us like the Joker plagues Gotham. Gun violence and economic stagnation in parts of our state. Prison overcrowding and struggling schools and the crisis of rural healthcare and blah blah blah.

Surely none of those things, not even the offensive nature of the offensive play calling at Alabama’s football powers, can withstand the might and wisdom of our heroes.

Faster than some speeding bull****, more powerful with a loco motive! Able to reach appalled squealing in a single bound.

Is it a bird? A plane? No. It’s the Alabama Legislature.

We can, with less than a month to go before the 2025 Legislative session, look at pre-filed bills to see how our creepy crusaders hope to save us from dangers they see: the perils of librarians and vaccines and drag queens and our own problematic history.

Sen. Gerald Allen, who used to be known as “that fringe guy from Tuscaloosa with the crazy bills” but is now as middle of the Alabama road as a flat armadillo, is very interested in helping young people love America. He wants to pay teachers to learn, well, a happier version of our history.

He is again pushing a bill, SB8, that would set up the “American History and Civics Excellence Initiative” to teach teachers to teach things like “the root foundation of American exceptionalism” and “the success of the United States and the success or failure of other nations’ governing philosophies.”

The head of the initiative would of course have to be confirmed by the Senate, which collectively thinks of Brother John Birch as a leftie. Teachers who complete the online indoctrination, I mean instruction, would receive a one-time stipend of $3,000.

It’s a small price to pay to make people say America is great. Again.

Allen, a Republican from Tuscaloosa, has another bill that would require schools to broadcast the national anthem at least once a week. He’s tried that one for years. He’ll file it until he gets it.

It’s all about liberty, you know. And the children.

A group of Republican House members led by Rep. Arnold (not Marvin K) Mooney will again go to the House with HB4, a modified version of a bill attempted last year that would apply anti-porn laws to public libraries and school libraries.

The bill seeks to root out displays of “sexual conduct,” which it defines broadly as any act of sexual intercourse, masturbation, urination, defecation, lewd exhibition of the genitals, sadomasochistic abuse, bestiality, or the fondling of the sex organs of animals” and so on. But of course that’s not what it’s about. They just want to link drag queens to the sex organs of animals.

For libraries specifically, the bill defines sexual conduct as “any sexual or gender-oriented conduct, presentation, or activity that knowingly exposes a minor to a person who is dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, who is stripping, or who is engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing.”

It is unclear what “gender-oriented conduct” means. But read Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” or watch “Tootsie” somewhere else.

Another bill, unrelated but not, would make it easier to get rid of library board members. SB6, by Baldwin County’s Sen. Chris Elliott, makes clear that board members can be removed by the politicians who appointed them.

Because history shows that art and literature and ideas are best regulated by politicians.

Heroes, these guys are. They are very interested in the health and well-being of Alabama’s children.

I guess that’s why Rep. Chip Brown, R-Mobile County, is again pushing a bill to require parental consent before minors can get a vaccination. That’ll probably pass this time.

Then again, Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, is pushing HB13 to ban the sale of assault weapons to a minor.

We’ll have to trust our heroes to show us what’s more dangerous, an AK-47 or a polio vaccine.

It’s a bird!

It’s a pain!

No, it’s just a stupor, man.

John Archibald is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.