While I see great worthiness in traditional republican values, I see none of them today worth mentioning and no reason to believe they are even slightly better than Dems. They care nothing of the deficit. In that regard, they are more progressive than Dems. At least Dems want to pay for at least some of their extravagant expenditures. The Republicans care not for any of it with a trillion dollar deficit during good times. We will all suffer come the next recession.
In terms of abortion, I prefer to go with the party that believes in educating youth, in providing birth control free of charge and safe sex, over the party of, "just say no", abstinence, I'm not paying for that, and just be responsible, when we all know, people in general cannot be made responsible for ANYTHING!
In terms of gun control, we have seen nothing but ramped up regulations against gun ownership since the Republicans gained control and that makes perfect sense. When dems were in control, they tried but had minority Republicans fighting them every step of the way. Now that Repubs are in charge they realize they need to govern and that sensible gun control needs to happen. The Dems are all for it and help them pass legislation. If you are against gun control you need to keep Republicans in the minority so that they can fight against it.
In terms of excess regulation. Both parties are guilty of this and I understand and find frustration with seeing the best parking spots at my local lumber yard, empty because they are designated for handicap parking. Lots of handicap people building decks and hauling 2X12X16' PT lumber apparently.
A simple off corner excursion in a ten year old car that I might have done when I was a teenager and gone unnoticed by my parents, now totals my car because the airbag sensors go off for the driver and passenger seatbelts, the airbag module and $4k of airbags/sensors and other parts need replacing. You think for an instant Repubs want to make these parts standard across the industry so that aftermarket manufacturers can produce $4k in parts for $300.00? NO! Never! They would like companies to make even more.
About the only thing I can agree with you on is that, both parties pretty much suck. Neither party has the brains to govern and don't understand the problems people are facing on a day to day basis.