Is America Being polerized?

A while back George Stephonopolis or whatever his name is aired a special on 20/20 about the polerization of America. At the time, I didn't think much of it, but now, some of it comes to me. His point was that American's have grown less and less moderate and more extreme on issues because we become obsessed with names "conservative" and "liberal" that when a moderate conservative and an extreme conservative join in discussion, the extreme conservative makes the moderate conservative more exreme, and the same way with the liberals.
As silly as it sounds, in a way, I both couldn't agree more and I couldn't disagree more at the same time. In name, American's are polerized. In idea, we are moderates. Someone may be pro-abortion, but also for a limited government. There is not a strictly conservative side with all extreme members, and then a liberal side, with all extreme members. We are obsessed with conservative-liberal, or Democrat-Republican, that we don't realize the issues are so complicated and there are so many, and we all really fall into what we see as "moderate."
With this, we become close-minded- both liberals and conservatives. Granted, I acknowledge often that my viewpoints are different than the typical liberal's viewpoints, but I at least try to be open-minded (though it is hard with liberal extremists).
When conservatives talk, they assume the other person is smart, and then assume that anybody with differeing opinions are liberal extremists. They don't realize that they may disagree more than they realize. The conservative "party" (unofficially a party we'll say), is so hard to define. Same with liberalism. It seems as if conservatism is about small government and traditional values, and liberalism is about big government and government aids with personal freedom riding over traditional freedom. However, neither one fully goes by this general rule. "Traditional Vaulue" also becomes hard to define, and some people hold to traditional values, but hold that the government should not take away personal liberties as well. Conservatives and liberals also vary with what the people who claim it believe, which has changed a lot over the last generation.
It seems only the libertarians offer a good defintion of what they believe. The defintion is basically to minimize the government and maximize both personal responsibility and personal freedom. They, also, intrestingly eneough, seem to be the most open-minded. However, people don't look to the libertarian point of view. I think that over time, people became so obsessed witht the conservative-liberal point of view, that they take a conservative takes a libertarian as a liberal, and a liberal takes a libertarian as a conservative.
Of course, sometimes the libertarians don't say what they need to to really get to the American people as much as they could. You would think that the people want personal liberties across the board (which is basically the libertarian point of view), but they don't seem to look to the libertarians. I think that about 75% of that is because of their closed-mindedness, but probably about 25% of that is due to the libertarians themselves. They focus too much on legalizing drugs sometimes, that they don't get to the heart of what both conservatives and liberals want. They also seem to talk about minimizing government so much that they don't bring in an emotion and pride to be an American (they won't say that they're not proud to be an American, but they sometimes don't stress it enough to get to the hearts of American's).
In short, we are being polerized in name by our obsession with name-calling. As a libertarian-conservative mix, it's easy for me to look at the liberals as the "bad guys," and sometimes they probably are the worst. I am not saying go challenge every belief you have, and treat everyone as a friend. But maybe we all should be a little more open-minded towards things, and we will all have reasonable conclusions, and we can come together as American's and know what is best for this country.