During my first go-around with The Courier-Herald, a frequent letter-writers responded to column I wrote with a letter that included a paragraph essentially calling for my public beheading.

This was just after the video surfaced of New York Times reporter Daniel Pearl being beheaded by members of al qaida.

The letter writer – still a major contributor and, quite honestly, one of my favorite voices in the community – was attacking me because I had the gall to point out during a column about the Declaration of Independence that the rights mentioned in the document were granted to ALL human beings by the creator, not the government, which simply protects them, and we should respect those rights for everyone.

The writer obviously didn’t literally mean I should be beheaded, but we at the paper decided the imagery was a little too violent for the discussion we were hoping to create on our Views page and edited that bit out, publishing the rest of letter – false citations, historical inaccuracies and all.

We kept the ideas, but lost the violence.

I addressed the topic in my next column, titled “I know you are but what am I?” At the time, I said I was worried about the political discourse in this country because it seemed to be getting to the point where the loudest voice in the room won an argument, instead of the one with the facts and rationality on their side.

I also pointed out that the letter-writer obviously reached for the vitriol and violence because he knew his point was weak.

I got to thinking about that letter again in the wake of the senseless shooting in Arizona two Saturdays ago and the discussions about the political climate and the exceedingly violent political rhetoric in the ramp-up to the 2010 midterm elections.

Much has been made of Sarah Palin’s map that used crosshairs to target specific Democrats running for reelection. And no, they are NOT “surveyor’s marks.” Those were rifle crosshairs. Why else would the accompanying tweet say that Republicans should “reload”?

Now, was Sarah Palin and the dozens of commentators, radio hosts and candidates (like Sharron Angle, proffering “Second Amendment remedies”) who followed her down this particularly ugly path actually calling for an assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords or any of the other members of Congress she targeted?

No, of course not. That’s ridiculous. They are no more directly responsible than Marilyn Manson is at fault for Columbine.

Jared Lee Loughner is obviously crazy. One look at his Uncle Fester-esque mugshot or perusal of his rambling youtube videos is enough to see that this dude is more than a little off kilter.

But to completely ignore the political climate in which this occurred and the violent rhetoric that surrounded this race (including Giffords’ Republican opponent hosting a “Get on target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16” fundraiser) is ridiculous and intellectually dishonest.

There is no doubt our political climate is more violent that it has been in my lifetime. First, this president has received more death threats than any president before him. Second, remember back to the health care town hall debates in the summer of 2009, when the far right was encouraging people to show up with guns strapped on their hips as a way to intimidate.

In fact, at one of Gifford’s own recent events, a man accidentally dropped his gun.

Now, I am a fan of political invective. It is my stock and trade as well. I have referred to certain columns as me throwing a firebomb.

I also think the right wing radio hosts in Arizona were doing their job by firing up the base and being controversial. That’s why they get paid.

But in retrospect, all that these people had to say was “Whoa. We obviously didn’t mean that, but now realize that some people take what we say to heart and we will be more careful about how we phrase things in the future to ensure that people know we are using hyperbole to advance a political point.”

That would be a rational response to this and I could accept that. It would show growth, understanding and the ability to learn from past mistakes.

You know, things we want in our leaders.

But no, instead it seems like every one of these people refuses to do any sort of self evaluation and have absolutely no interest in toning it down, consequences be damned.

Again, I am generally all for ramped up rhetoric. I believe in politics as combat, but combat of ideas.

To me, it should be a little like rap music. In rap, one of the most important, base elements of the genre is the “battle,” in which two MC’s go toe to toe, attacking each other with rhymes to prove who is better. Often, those rhymes deal in guns, murder and death, but the weaponry is metaphor for lyrical skills and “murdering an MC” is a metaphor for destroying them verbally.

In the mid-1990s, however, things went too far and people took the beef too seriously, resulting a feud between East and West Coast rappers that only ended when the biggest names on each coast were gunned down for no good reason.

After that, rappers on both sides took a step back. Many songs that included such metaphors also began to include lines about how it is a verbal thing, not a physical thing and rappers began to realize that while they knew it was all words, some of the people listening obviously were taking it too seriously.

Then again, it is important to draw a distinct difference between an artist maybe going too far and a politician talking about real, important things. The politician should definitely know better.

Which is what we need now; for the people fanning flames to realize that perhaps we should all be a little more careful in what we say and how we say it.

I am not assigning blame and I am not calling for any sort of censorship. I am simply calling for people to maybe consider a bit longer what they are saying before they say it. Like grown ups are supposed to do.

I know I will. We can’t make our political opponents out to be enemies of ourselves or of the country as a whole. That kind of talk is not only counterproductive (why would you compromise with someone trying to destroy the nation, even if they were democratically elected?) but obviously dangerous.

Rep. Giffords herself knew that, as we have all seen in the now seemingly prophetic clip about the crosshairs on her district when she said of the ad “people have to realize there are consequences to that.”

Again, no one wants to take away anyone’s right to say whatever stupid thing they want. This is America. This is what makes us great.

But as Jon Stewart said on his first show back after the shooting, “It would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn’t in any way resemble how we actually talk to each other on TV. Let’s at least make troubled individuals easier to spot.”

And if rappers can understand that, surely our political leaders and pundits can, too.