I keep hearing how the best government is government closest to home.

I know, I know.

The "best government," in Alabama, is an oxymoron.

But the idea that the best government is closest to the people is a tenet of Republican politics, a part of the liturgy of GOP groups across the country:

"I am a Republican because ... the closer a government is to its people, the more responsive it is."

Except in Alabama. One of the reddest states of all.

Where government closest to home is a recurring target. It is ironic, I suppose, that trampling government closest to home in Alabama has become a way to achieve conservative street cred.

It's like trying to prove your love for Jesus by hating the Jews. It doesn't make sense.

Now steaming its way through the Alabama Legislature is a bill -- sponsored by Sen. Gerald Allen - to create the Alabama Heritage Preservation Act. It would prevent anybody anywhere, particularly in governments closest to home, from removing or changing any historical monument on public land.

Too bad if your majority black city had a giant statue to a Klansman erected when Confederate veterans ran the place. Get used to it.

If Alabama has its way, governments closest to home will have no say about ... anything. (file)

It was initially aimed at Birmingham, after a movement sought to remove a Confederate monument from Linn Park. But it will apply to any city. And any monument.

Becasuse the state thinks government closest to home shouldn't have a say.

It doesn't much matter what you think of the issue of monuments or historical preservation. You can debate the merits of context and history and providing a full telling of the pros and cons of all that took place in our past. You can debate whether it's best to take down murals that offend some, like those in the Jefferson County Courthouse, or whether the best approach is to add more art to give the story a more complete telling.

But that's not the issue here.

This issue is simply that Alabama believes - as it did when the Democrats where in charge and as it does since those same Democrats became Republicans - that government closest to home is a whipping boy.

These aren't conservative principles. They are political parlor tricks.

It was the same with the bill outlawing Birmingham and other cities from setting their own minimum wage. That one swept through the Legislature and was signed by the governor before he could say .... Um, what day is it?

In the name of conservatism and the almighty dollar and the notion that we know best, the Legislature - led by Mountain Brook Republican David Faulkner - decided cities were too stupid to set their own minimum wage laws, that government closest to home is closest to the devil.

And in the process this "conservative" Legislature did the impossible. It made the self-serving and dysfunctional Birmingham City Council look like the good guys.

Talk about a public disservice.

They are a problem, yeah. But they are our problem.

The Birmingham City Council - recall -- raised its minimum wage for its own self-serving reasons. After getting caught more than doubling the council's own pay, members rushed to spread the money around to distract from their own greed.

In the process they ignored the city's own lawyers, who told them to wait until studies about the minimum wage could be finished. Because it might be bad for the city. But they moved ahead, looking as transparent as they were.

Until the Legislature decided to step in. To show government closest to home who's really the boss.

And to show the people of Alabama what they really think the people.

About government closest to home. And about those conservative principles they claim to hold.

It means nothing.