I used to call myself libertarian, till I noticed that it completely misaligns people's expectations of what my position would be on any particular issue.
I do think that individual rights are the correct framework to discuss social theory. But I think that libertarianism understands rights as property rights, which puts the cart in front of the horse. Rights are behaviors that conform with the Golden Rule; property rights may or may not emerge from that, depending on political culture.
Further, libertarianism misunderstands morality -- what we discussed at some length on this thread. This leads to moral decay as a part of libertarain package. Moral decay leads to collapse of freedom as a social institution, and of course, ontologically freedom cannot be understood outside of morals.
So I do not think that libertarianism is sufficient for productive political discourse. Democrat/Republican is simply not a useful framework for anything, particularly since the GOP has morphed into a big government interventionist Wilsonian party.
My big problem with libertarianism is that is still makes too much of an issue out of government. Liberals say govt. is good and libertarians say it is bad; but the simple fact as I see it is that (get ready) good is good and bad is bad. If government laws work for the improvement of soceity, they are good, but if we remove almost all government and let people be as wicked as they please, then that is certainly a bad thing.
Maybe I'm being overly simplistic, and I do believe in subsidiarism as a general principle, but it seems to me that government itself is neither good or bad as to size, but what sort of things it does makes all the difference.
Sadly enough, you are quite right here for many libertarians. But their are large numbers of exceptions. You followed up this statement with mention of the "Golden Rule," thereby implying that it should be the horse. Many libertarians such as my self put the principle that each/all individuals have a right to live their own lives in what ever manner they choose, along with its proviso and implementing rule, was ahead of property rights which we see as a necessary benefit. And then traditional views of property rights have come under new criticism by many libertarians to include by LP founding member David Nolan. At any rate, your assumption that libertarians put the cart before the horse is a very narrow view of the movement.
libertarianism misunderstands morality
This of course I do not agree with you on. My position is that libertarianism more than any other political philosophy, strengthens morality. Among the moralities it strengthens is your "kindness" morality, at least in as far as you have discussed it with me on this thread. All other systems undermine morality (to include "kindness").