You make a good point; however, I think another point of distinction is that liberals define what other people need in terms of what they themselves want, without regard to what the objects of their "affection" really want or need; conservatives, on the other hand, believe that wants and needs are a matter mostly of subjective judgment, and that each person should be left alone to determine his or her own wants and needs, and to design the best means to achieve those ends, within very, very wide boundaries (e.g., no murdering just to get enough money to buy that flashy new porsche you cannot otherwise afford on your service industry wages).
That, of course, is more or less one of the defining differences between socialists-cum-fascists on the one hand and freedom-lovers on the other.
Good point, Oceander. We are all familiar with the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you). But the Golden Rule assumes that those others want the same things that you want, and people’s desires do differ. A harder rule, which we might call “the Diamond Rule”: do unto others as they as they want to be done to, just as you want them to so do unto you.