Republicans want you to: Be economically responsible for yourself, they do not want you to rely on the government for your financial aid. They do not believe you should be forced into financial programs that may benefit you, such as health care. They want you to be financially responsible. However, they do not want you to be socially responsible, they believe that it is the governments place to tell you that you can not marry people of the same sex, tell you that you can not smoke marijuana. Basically they believe that they should have the right to make personal decisions for you that have no negative impact on other people's lives. (It's important to know that these decisions only a affect the individual choosing to be involved, more on that later). therefore they want you to be [u]Socially dependent [/u] on the government. Democrats want you to: Depend on the government for your financial aid, they believe that they should force companies to hire certain kinds of people, believe that food stamps should be distributed to anyone struggling to even the slightest degree, they believe that you should be forced to have health care for yourself. They want you to be [u]Economically dependent[/u] on the government. However, socially, they believe you should have the freedom to marry someone of your same sex, smoke marijuana, make decisions for yourself. As long as they do not negatively impact others who did not chose to participate in it (Eg. Marijuana can be legal because it's only "hurting" the person choosing to smoke it, but -blam!- shouldn't be legal because it's forcing someone else to be involved that did not want to be) So they want you to be Socially independent from the government. So in reality, neither of these parties really want you to be independent, or responsible, they have just split up the two divisions of freedom and attack them on their own times. They both want you to be accountable on the government for your entire lives, they're working together to slowly -blam!- you over until it's too late. Just take a look at Obama, what has he pushed the most for? Legalizing gay marriage? No, he's done very minimal work on that. Legalizing marijuana? No, he's ignored that outright(he's let some states get away with it, only because he knows when the republicans get back in control they will take care of that). Worked towards Trans- rights? Not that I can think of. Minimal at best, at least compared to his Health care law. He hasn't worked towards giving you social freedom, he's working towards taking away your economic freedom. And when the Republicans come back in control, promising you to give you back the economic freedom that Obama took away, they will work towards taking away your social freedoms. And when the Democrats get back in control, promising you to give you back the social freedoms the republicans took away, they will work towards taking your economic freedom away. and so the viscous circle will continue until America realizes that the Libertarians are the only one's who stick to principle.