Basic things to understand:
1) The more control the gov't has, the less freedom you have.
2) Politicians, are just as greedy as the rest of us (at least).
3) There is a simple knee-jerk reaction to every problem -
"There Oughta be a Law"
that we have. If we don't resist that, we wind up in a mess of laws, coercion by the gov't everywhere you turn, and a huge loss of our freedoms.
4) Major social programs initiated by law, have achieved a great deal of negative effects. Our goal should be VOLUNTARY social programs, as much as possible, instead of forced Stateism control of social programs.
Let Mr. Friedman describe it. The video is quite old, but the logic is brilliant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfdRpyfEmBE
Note how the meaning of liberal and conservative have changed over the ensuing years. Liberals today are joined at the hip with Statists, who want the state involved in every part of our lives. (Milton refers to that as Collectivisim). I will call it Stateism. Stateism may take the form of Socialism, Communism, or others, but those words refer to a particular type of tightly regulated State control. Stateism is the parent and broader term I use for it.