If you like your doorknobs you can keep them

Vancouver Banned Doorknobs. Good. | Popular Science: Click on the link if you want to read the scientific reasons behind the decision.

What is interesting to me is that this is the sort of issue that you never hear conservatives complain about. It is something that is done at the state or the city level and so constitutionally there is no problem, they have the power to make such rules.

Imagine, though, if you tried to do this at the national level. There would not only be the problem of where in the Sam Hill the US government gets the power to mandate the use of levers instead of doorknobs, there would be objections on substance. There are a lot of places where banning doorknobs might be a good idea but a lot of places where it is not. A lot of places where they like the idea and a lot of places where they don't. What might be a minor issue at the local level would become a major pain if it were made into a decision made at the national level.

This is the beauty of Federalism. Just let states make the laws they are constitutionally entitled to make and the federal government stick to the powers delegated to it by the Constitution and so many of the vexing arguments and conflicts over political issues of our day just melt away.

Conservatives are fine with local communities making laws that they do not personally agree with. It is only when national elites try to impose their preferences on the rest of us through mis-interpretations of the Federal Constitution that we complain.