I awoke one morning last week to find a “pleasant” surprise awaiting me when I left my room to take a shower.

I pulled the door shut to find that the dry-erase board hanging there held quite an insulting comment toward me about one of my previous articles. It did not make an argument or state facts — it just insulted me. Bravo. Whoever wrote that got me on an emotional level — it made me laugh.

Don’t get me wrong, I like it when people disagree with me. It gives me a chance to re-evaluate and keep myself in check. But I have no patience for those who, for lack of a proper argument, choose rather to insult and debase. I would love to discuss such things with people face to face, but will continue to laugh at groundless insults.

In my experience, this is not rare. In fact, ad hominem “arguments” have permeated our culture in many aspects. It seems the most prevalent of these aspects is the political world.

If it’s November of an election year, political campaign ads fill the airwaves. After a suspenseful pause, “Lost” cuts to commercial and you’re met with music of a dubious tone. A candidate’s head materializes and you’re told why that person represents absolute evil, so you shouldn’t vote for them. Their picture might as well be placed on a “Wanted: Dead or Alive” poster. In today’s world, it seems this is the way to campaign on TV.

These types of negative campaign ads have become more common in recent years. According to the Washington Post, the presidential race of 2004 recorded the most negative campaign ads on TV in history. While it’s perfectly reasonable to expect candidates to attempt to point out faults in their opponents, it would seem that sometimes they cross the line. Most of these ads state certain facts about their subject, at whom they are slinging mud. While many of these facts are based on truth, this truth is stretched and often deceives the viewer. But that’s nothing new — since their beginnings, politicians have done so to get the edge.

Then there are ads similar to what was on my door. Instead of presenting facts, they merely debase. One such example is an anti-Lieberman ad from the primaries in Connecticut. It depicted Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s face slowly morphing into President Bush’s face. Opponent Ned Lamont said through the ad that Lieberman is just like Bush because he supports the war in Iraq. That couldn’t be further from the truth — the war is one of the few views the two share.

These ads hold a lot of sway with the public, and that’s no one’s fault but our own. Perhaps we should be more concerned with a candidate’s character and what we infer from our own research — to take negative ads at face value is to be an irresponsible voter. I have a lot of respect for those candidates who choose not to rub their opponents’ faces in the mud, but rather explain why and how they would do better. We have the ability through voting to let candidates know whether those negative ads are really a good idea or not.

If you’re voting this November, I would encourage you to do some of your own research on where candidates stand on issues that concern you, and not place too much stock in those annoying ads. Now, when they interrupt your beloved new season of “Lost” with these annoying things, you can just flip over to the “other” network while you wait to see how that suspenseful pause will be resolved.

Matt Wier is an opinion columnist for the Northern Star.