In medieval England, prisoners were often designated to receive the worst possible punishment for their crimes – a sentence that was as much a spectacle as it was grisly, and all that was needed were two horses and a bit of rope.

The act of drawing and quartering was outlawed. However, you might be interested to hear that it still exists today.

Of course, customs have changed a little bit. Rather than a bit of rope, we now use red tape, and rather than the two horses, a donkey and an elephant.

Semantics, semantics.

My point is that we – the American public – are getting pulled apart. We are being ideologically drawn and quartered into polarized states without any hope of reattachment. No suture can mend the complete disembowelment that our political structure has sustained over the past 15 years.

The fact is, we have all – and let me reiterate that – all become so closed-minded, so absolutely hell-bent on our own perceptions of the truth, that we have systematically cut ourselves off from reason. However, the scariest part about our current political climate isn’t even our narrow-mindedness on the issues. It’s our tunnel-vision definition of the term open-mindedness.

While I agree that it is necessary to be open-minded, what is absolutely pivotal at this time is the redefinition of the perception of open-mindedness into a more realistic ideal.

The way I see it, the basic quality of open-mindedness has recently been linked to the liberal agenda, which is an understandable relationship considering that oftentimes liberalism strives for change, and to initiate change, one must be open to new ideas. However, at the same time, this one-sided definition is diverging our national political structure, undermining potentially necessary conservative thought and closing our minds from balanced perspectives in favor of left-wing ideals.

Not to mention, it has gone straight to Nancy Pelosi’s head.

Open-mindedness is not progressivism. But essentially, what we have done by identifying these terms as synonymous is given the Democrats diplomatic immunity from anything at all, because they are always – albeit, ironically – in the right.

The way they see it, they can’t be beat.

Liberals are now able to freely paint themselves as political arbitrators due to their “progressive open-mindedness,” even if they have no intention of living up to their title.

The problem is that no one is willing to compromise – in fact, we would rather shut down the government than do so. And you know why? It’s because we have such a farfetched and egotistical approach to politics here in the states.

The Democrats won’t compromise because they have become the literal definition of open-minded by trying to get us meagerly thrown-together “Obamacare,” and the Republicans won’t compromise because they feel so disenfranchised by the public’s stereotypical view of them as never-changing that they have been forced to fit this unyielding mold to save face and get re-elected.

The fact is, open-mindedness isn’t an acceptance of radical change; it’s the methodical analysis and mature reception of various ideas.

Still, without anyone trying to redefine this notion, especially not in our national government, don’t be too alarmed if you see an elephant running down McFarland Boulevard with half the populous’ dreams trailing behind. It’s just a normal, closed-minded day in America.

Maxton Thoman is a sophomore majoring in biology. His column runs weekly on Wednesdays.