Hi RogerV
Welcome to Freerepublic. If you want to engage in a serious discussion of issues, two places to start.
One, you can click on my screenname to read my profile. It's filled with quotes that you might find interesting, as they encapsulate a lot of my basic beliefs, which might be a good point to begin debates as I'm sure you'll disagree with most of them.
Two... I would urge you to contemplate this proposition: The key difference between liberals and conservatives (using both those words in the modern sense, as they have changed meaning over time), is that liberals believe (implicitly or explicitly) in the perfectibility of man, and therefore of society.
Conservatives, by contrast, for one reason or another believe that mankind is flawed, basically bad. Some are creationists who believe that mankind was once perfect but fell from grace and became sinner; others are evolutionists who believe that mankind has all sorts of naturally selected selfish instincts that aren't going away any time soon.
Either way, both groups believe that human nature is a potentially dangerous, corruptible thing if unleashed, and that religion and/or law and/or(ideally) self discipline are needed to control it. This applies not just to "bad guys"; even good hearted people can be tempted and are potentially corruptible. (One ring to rule them all...)
The first and most obvious political implication of the "flawed human" theory is our general resistance to big government. If even the best of us are corruptible, then it makes sense that no person or group of persons should have unaccountable power over others: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". Hence, government should be limited, divided, checked and balanced, publicly criticized, forced to face election, and perpetually kept in fear of armed citizen revolt -- in short, the Constitution as originally intended.
And government handouts or subsidies are, in our worldview, EXPECTED to CATEGORICALLY be abused, so we're mostly against them.
Yet, the government must be big and strong enough to stop oppressions committed by flawed mankind, ranging from street crime to slavery to corporate abuses to terrorism-- hence the "law and order" mentality of conservatives, myself included.
Contemplate these attitudes in contrast with their liberal opposites for a while, then get back to me and we'll talk.
Best wishes
I think you got that exactly wrong if flawed means evil.