Earlier this year, Glenn Beck caused a bit of a stir when, on his television show, he toyed around with the idea of a “private army” taking over America's combat operations in Afghanistan because “I have not seen the government do anything except cause problems.”

For his comments, Beck was slammed by veterans groups for “insulting our men and women in uniform.” Nevertheless, a little over a month later Beck said he didn't believe that the government had to operate the army.

But in his newest book, Broke, Beck dismisses the notion that anyone but the federal government handle national security [Page 270]:

Obviously, there are certain things that only the federal government can do. We can't have competing armies or competing judicial systems, but that's why the federal government exists in the first place. Remember, the list of things they should do is pretty short: national security, judiciary, international relations, and patents and copyrights. Competition among states in those areas would be a disaster. And that, in fact, is a pretty good litmus test for figuring out whether a program or agency should be at the state or national level: If competition would be a bad thing, then the feds should probably have it.

So which is it? Do we have roving bands of mercenaries fighting our wars or not?