I often describe my journey to understanding liberty as a constant effort to rid myself of contradictions. Our collectivist education plants contradictions deep into our subconscious, and we often don’t even realize we harbor them.

Each of your paragraphs has a contradiction built in:

Paragraph 1 – There is no conflict between two people exercising their right to life, liberty and property. At the point that one person interferes with the rights of another, that’s not liberty – that’s a violation of another persons rights. Infringements on the rights of others will always occur, and systems have always been built to resolve such problems. The simple definition of liberty and the rights of others is embedded in the Non-Aggression Principle. Check the category “Non-Aggression Principle” in the left navigation for an introduction.

Paragraph 2 – There is no such thing as a “good for all” that trumps what’s good for the individual. Again, there is no conflict between individuals when they exercise their individual liberty with respect for the rights of others.

The “Fire! In a public theatre” confusion stems from a lack of understanding that all rights are based in property. See Rothbard’s clarification near the bottom of this essay: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard65.html

Being “compelled” to pay for the education of others, of course, means the use of violence to force people to do something. Here we have a violation of individual liberty. Nothing good comes of any system that must be funded by the threat of violence. As such, government-run education is immoral and a failure on a grand scale.

Paragraph 3 – “we know that what is good for the individual is bad for the group…” Please think this through. What is a “group?” A group is nothing more than a collection of individuals. How can something good for an individual be bad for individuals once you’ve arbitrarily defined them as a group? It’s a massive conflict of reasoning.

I draw the line at the individual. Anything that violates the rights of an individual is a bad thing, period.

Your confusion is all based in this collectivist idea that things can be made good for a “group” by violating the rights of individuals. But the group is made up of those individuals. How can this be possible?

You are not in conflict with your fellow man if you have your rights to life, liberty, and property and you respect the life, liberty and property of others. If anything you call a “right” requires that someone else be forced to provide it for you, it isn’t a “right” in the first place. It is a violation of rights.