Can't and won't are two different things. Sooner or later nearly all of us suffer some circumstance that inhibits our ability to achieve success in life. Most of us respond by rallying to overcome adversity either fully or at least to the extent possible. When you've done this it's easy to resent lazy people who latch on to the usual excuses for their own failures. That is not to say that everyone who is struggling is lazy, but too often we as a society fail to make this distinction and in doing so we encourage this kind of excuse-making. When we do this we do it at the expense of those who truly need and deserve help.

Our government should encourage responsibility and self reliance - but politicians derive a benefit (power, influence, and control) from an irresponsible and dependent populace. This is what's wrong with government and politicians in general. If we are to make a distinction between Republican and Democrat, or at least distinguish between the platforms of each party, we see that the Dems pursue an agenda that increases our dependence on government while the Repubs encourage (at least in theory) the opposite.

It's the classic lesser-of-two-evils argument, but it's all we have to work with and it's the best reason I can find to belong to either party. With that said, I agree with the original premise of this thread - thirty some pages ago.