Federalism and Consistency

My friend and UCLAW colleague Eugene Volokh has a very thoughtful post on the difference between federalism and localism, which nicely rebuts charges that conservatives who generally favor federalism are being inconsistent when they occasionally advocate national solutions to select problems. As an example of that principle in action, might I suggest my own post Can you be a Competitive Federalist and still want Spitzer to shut the #@!% up?