> The modern left dislikes it and prefers federal power....

I'd say rather that both left and right have a complicated relationship with the federal system; I know plenty of lefties that are gratified, in the face of national pushback against their preferred initiatives, that they can at least make progress at the state level. And we have all seen evidence of even the most states-rights-rah-rah righties trying to make use of federal prohibitions and requirements when they thought that the national Zeitgeist was flowing in their direction.

I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite over this, by the way, and I think most anyone with a view on this would cop to a somewhat nuanced view if prodded.

Not that I disagree, but which are the "most states-rights-rah-rah righties trying to make use of federal prohibitions and requirements when they thought that the national Zeitgeist was flowing in their direction"?

One example from a few years back was DOMA, which said that the federal government couldn't recognise same-sex marriages even if a state performed them (as they started to do a few years later).

Another is No Child Left Behind, a Republican-sponsored measure (though like DOMA it did receive bipartisan support) that forced a lot of specific educational policy on various states that weren't very happy about it, but acceded because the alternative was federal defunding.

Another is various efforts involving abortion and, lately, contraception; I hesitate to get too deep on specifics lest I derail the thread, but right-wing efforts there have not been confined to the state level. (Nor have left-wing efforts, obviously.)

Who voted for the federal measures to twist the states into raising the drinking age to 21?

I think you're reading way too much into the rhetorical touches in the article. There's an interesting contradiction that one of the busiest shopping areas in the nation also being the only place left with a wide-ranging Sunday shopping ban. That's really what this article is about.

It's not about the fact that municipalities can have different laws, which is not unique to the United States, and I'm curious if you have evidence that "the modern left dislikes" the fact that cities and states can have varying laws. I don't have that impression, but it does make for a convenient straw man.

The left and the right both support state and local experimentation when it suits their desired outcome and they both support national power when it suits their desired outcome. The political parties may pay lip service to political philosophy, but in practice they take advantage of whatever philosophical argument works best for the outcome they wish to achieve. See: slavery, fugitive slave laws, segregation, voting rights, same sex marriage, marijuana legalization, abortion, labor organization, union busting, immigration, environmental protection, consumer protection, universal health care...

Exactly, if we take this assertion, then we'd have to say that Germany had been very backward till recently when most stores were not open beyond 6PM[1] and people had to rush out of work by 4PM to buy their groceries. Thankfully, as far as I understand it, that has been relaxed over the last few years.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladenschlussgesetz

Germany used to be more modern in the 19th century, when they didn't have a Ladenschlussgesetz as restrictive as what the 20th century saw.

So you'd bet against? Because the balance between state and federal power has been on the decline for at least 200 years, and is essentially gone now. (Total federal power.) A republic if you can keep it, but, oops, we couldn't.