It is also often the case that one group's freedom has a negative, not wanted, impact on another group. And how about the group's freedom to decide that it is okay to mandate all members of the group to participate in a public service?

Perhaps it is because English is not your first language, but this makes absolutely no sense to me. Can you explain what you mean by this?

Why this focus on freedom of the individual?

Because the ffreedom of the individual is one of the principles that this country was founded upon. Without freedom for the individual, there is no freedom at all.

Aren't justice and equality (to name two) worth as much or even more?

How does justice negate individual freedom? In this country we all have an equal opportunity to achieve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal results.

Discussions such as these make me think of on of my very favorite literary passages:

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 1879

[The Grand Inquistor, taking to Christ, who has been turned over to the Spanish Inquisition by "the masses." The "we" are the brotherhood of the inquisition. ]

Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!" that's what they'll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years; for they will come back to us after a thousand years of agony with their tower. They will seek us again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for we shall be again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to us, "Feed us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven't given it!" And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes the building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name, declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they remain free.

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious.