What makes the muscle I pay to enforce my contracts with taxes inherently better than independently contracted muscle?

He can do that now too. Occasionally does, by accident. (OK, perhaps salmonella in peanut butter and mad cow disease aren't poison per se. Close enough.) Incredibly bad for business, I might add.

I will admit to not having actually read Adam Smith as such. I feel virtually certain he has a quote I can use to answer this, but 5 minutes with The Wealth of Nations and firefox search was not enough to uncover it. Those economists in the Austrian school, at least, would however disagree vehemently.

The whole point of an Invisible Hand is that maintenance of order will arise spontaneously from chaos, because order benefits everyone. All the externally imposed order of government does is force men into a pattern that is slightly unnatural.

The 1st Century Pax Romana wasn't actually peaceful. In fact, in that time the Romans conquered all of England, large parts of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Pax Romana actually refers to the relative paucity of civil war in the early Roman Empire. (As in, it only happened once or twice.)

So saying "Pax * implies no wars are being fought anywhere" is untrue to the concept of Pax *

This country *was* built on tax evasion.

Though I suppose a great deal of the early (pre-Independence) immigration was for religious reasons. It really does make sense for those two to be joined like that in the modern US.

Jesus specifically discouraged tax evasion... hmm. American Christians don't actually follow Christianity. Shocker.

TrueCrypt's been doing this for years.