Following up on his excellent column, Ross channels Popper and Hayek and our own Jim Manzi on the case for decentralization and experimentation. After citing a study that suggests that abstinence education can prove very effective, he does something very rare in a policy debate — he doesn’t immediately claim that the result of a study that reflects favorably on his own views must be right and universally applicable.

Does this prove that abstinence-based education always lowers teen sexual activity? No — it proves that one abstinence program designed in a particular way, implemented by a particular group of teachers, and aimed at a particular age group in a particularly area was considerably more effective than a contraception-based approach. And that’s all that any controlled experiment is likely to prove. The data on this question are necessarily deeply particular, and partisans on both sides will probably always be able to find studies that “prove” the superiority of their preferred approach. (Here’s a recent entry for the pro-comprehensive sex ed side, for instance.) Which suggests, to my mind, the virtues of both widespread experimentation and local control, rather than an inevitably polarizing quest for a one-size-fits-all solution.

And when Hanna Rosin, a terrific writer who favors a very different approach to sex education, calls for a fairly neutral curriculum that doesn’t involve lying to children, Ross asks the obvious question:

I certainly agree that nobody should lie to a child. But who is this “we” who will design this “fairly neutral” curriculum? Where are the teachers who will implement it, without a trace of pro-chastity or pro-contraception bias? (Besides the fictional Principal Tami Taylor, that is.) And for that matter, is it really possible to imagine a universal just-the-facts program that would fit the incredibly diversity of teenage experience in the United States?

Over the last year, I’ve noticed a growing frustration among smart liberals with the very idea of federalism. One obvious source of this frustration is that despite large majorities in both chambers of Congress, left-of-center legislators haven’t been able to remake the American system of government as some would like. But as Richard Thompson Ford argued in Slate argued shortly after the reelection of George W. Bush, there is a very strong case for federalism from the left.

Many liberals who haven’t yet moved to Canada have indulged the fantasy of a “blue state” secessionist movement. But the American legal tradition does offer liberals a practical alternative to secession or a condo in Vancouver. It’s called federalism, aka “state’s rights.” Liberals often have a reflexive distaste for decentralization of political power: State and local autonomy strike them as provincial and regressive. But much of the association of federalism with conservative politics is the result of historical accident: There is nothing inherentlyconservative about limitations on the power of Congress and the executive. And now that both of these branches are firmly controlled by conservatives, perhaps liberals will begin to see the merits of meaningful federalism. They won’t need to look far: The president, mounting that favorite hobby horse of conservatives—tort reform—has just proposed federal legislation to limit medical malpractice awards. Even a modicum of respect for the prerogatives of the states should stay Congress’ hand: Tort liability has always been a matter of state law, and the effects of supposedly excessive awards in one state should have few consequences for the quality or cost of medical care in other states.
Federalism is not just for conservatives, anymore.

Alas, Ford’s “new blue federalism” didn’t last for very long.