Sidebar into politics... A general and highly idealized way I look at political ideologies...

(Note: This was originally a FaceBook comment to a Libertarian friend's post about registering as a Republican and his friends' criticism of it as well as references to "the wrong party".)

It really depends on 1) How you much you value finances and 2) How far away they are making decisions.

Republicans/Conservatives spend money on defense and on policy that distinctly separates "us" and "them".  This doesn't mean that they try to hurt "them", but--when there's a preference, there's a difference.  A simpler way to think about it is that Republicans try break connections between the people they identify with and others with a high risk or a high cost to be associated with.

This means--if there actually is a meaningful distinction--like at the international level--it's a useful way of thinking.  Their fiscal policies are along the same lines except they tend to think of "us" as being the more contributing people and "them" as being the less-contributing people.

Democrats/Liberals, on the other hand, want to see everyone as equals.  Though idealistically noble, this is also their primary problem because this altruism makes them easy to take advantage of.  By distributing effort and resources across borders and without much reference to personal differences, they often develop policies that are expensive because people--who are often selfish--are abusing the system.
At home, in small, relatively homogeneous populations, this can be very helpful and encourage success by supporting the people who are key to our society.  At higher levels, unless the person has a definite attachment to a distinct group, you create problems.  ("Blue Dog Democrats" probably fall into the attached-category.)

Libertarians are sort of a different breed all together.  Their dividing line between "us" vs "them" becomes "me" vs. "you" vs. "them".   Where Democrats only see one set of ideal living situations and Republicans make a distinction between the in-group and the out-group, for Libertarians, there is an out-group writ large and it's okay for their to be differences between people inside the "in-group".

This is why the Libertarians have a lot of their political problems with numbers.  It's like herding cats.  Cats are--when they are mature--social creatures that create a hierarchy.  However, for the first half of their lives, they only associate with who they want to when they have to and only for as long as the other doesn't create some reason for conflict. 

This tendency does not lend itself to stand-alone success in a political system that is based on numbers and cohesiveness.  And--while it comes up with equitable--at least as far as effort invested--solutions to problems, selling them to others except where the borders of their political philosophy act, is often difficult.  In other words, guns and the Republicans, universal individual liberties and the Democrats, etc.

So, yeah, that's my take.  Pick your poison...