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Gavel in front of a pistol. Gun laws and legislation concept.

The Second Amendment is not a privilege granted by government; it is a pre-existing, natural right explicitly recognized and protected by our Constitution. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Those final four words could not be clearer: shall not be infringed.Every law-abiding and mentally stable citizen of the United States has the right to defend themselves, their family, and their home with the firearm of their choice. Full stop. No permission slip from the government is required, because self-defense is a natural right that predates any legislature.We’ve all heard the tired slogan pushed after every tragedy: “Guns kill people.” No - people kill people. A firearm is an inanimate object, no different in moral agency than a car, a knife, or a baseball bat. Evil or deranged individuals commit acts of violence, not the tools they unfortunately choose. Criminals, by definition, do not obey laws. Passing another stack of gun-control statutes only burdens the law-abiding citizen while doing exactly nothing to stop those who have already decided to break the law.If we genuinely want to reduce violence, we should focus on the actual root cause: mental health. Oregon and America are in the grip of a mental health crisis. Skyrocketing youth suicide rates, untreated severe mental illness, the fentanyl epidemic tearing families apart, and a culture that too often glorifies violence while isolating the vulnerable—these are the issues driving “gun violence,” not the presence of firearms owned by responsible citizens. We need aggressive early intervention, expanded access to inpatient and outpatient treatment, and a willingness to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who have been adjudicated as dangerous—not endless new restrictions on peaceful Oregonians who have never harmed anyone.We are not just talking theory with this Marine candidate. Russ McAlmond is a certified NRA handgun instructor where gun safety comes first - always.&nbsp;More importantly, he spent years on active duty with the United States Marine Corps teaching young Marines how to safely and effectively employ their service rifles and pistols in defense of this nation. He has seen firsthand what proper training and respect for firearms can accomplish. Responsible gun ownership saves lives far more often than it ever endangers them - whether it’s a mother protecting her children from a home invasion in rural Josephine County or a shopkeeper defending his livelihood in downtown Portland.Oregonians are some of the most independent, self-reliant people in America. From the ranchers in Harney County to the loggers on the coast, from the hunters in the Cascades to the families in the Willamette Valley, we understand that when seconds count, help is minutes away. The police cannot be everywhere, and they have no legal duty to protect individual citizens (the Supreme Court has ruled so repeatedly). Your safety is ultimately your responsibility.That is why he will always defend—without apology or compromise—your Second Amendment rights in the U.S. Senate. No surrender of our constitutional rights to international bodies or unelected bureaucrats. Oregon doesn’t need another politician who will trade away your freedoms for political votes. Oregon needs a Marine who has trained America’s finest, who understands the difference between liberty and license, and who will stand like a stone wall for the Constitution.

2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights

Girl with a skateboard and women practicing different sports

For over fifty years, Title IX has stood as one of America’s greatest civil-rights achievements: it guaranteed women and girls a fair playing field by creating sex-segregated sports. That separation wasn’t arbitrary—it was the only way to give females a realistic chance to compete, win, and earn scholarships when biology otherwise stacks the deck overwhelmingly in favor of males. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley now wants to dismantle that hard-won fairness. He insists that biological males who identify as transgender must be allowed to compete in women’s and girls’ sports, dismissing mountains of evidence that male puberty confers irreversible advantages in muscle mass, bone density, heart size, lung capacity, and fast-twitch fiber—advantages that even years of hormone suppression do not erase. Merkley waves away broken records, crushed dreams, and locker-room privacy violations as acceptable collateral damage in the name of “inclusion.” In reality, his policy sacrifices the rights and safety of millions of female athletes to accommodate a vanishingly small number of transgender-identifying males. Republican challenger Russ McAlmond refuses to let that happen. He understands that genuine equality and authentic human rights for women are protected only when sports remain separated by biological sex—the very principle Title IX was written to defend. McAlmond points out the obvious: when males compete as females, women’s records vanish overnight, podium spots disappear, and scholarships evaporate. That is not compassion; it is the opposite of fairness.The American people, the scientific community, and now the governing bodies of sport have overwhelmingly rejected Merkley’s position:February 2025: President Trump signs an Executive Order banning transgender females from women’s sports and withholding federal funds from any school or program that refuses to comply.&nbsp; The NCAA (Feb 2025) and NAIA (2024) immediately bar athletes assigned male at birth from women’s competition.&nbsp; 25 states have enacted full bans on males in girls’ school sports—Oregon, under Merkley’s party’s control, remains one of the holdouts.&nbsp; The International Olympic Committee and nearly every major Olympic federation are moving toward blanket bans on biological males in elite women’s events.&nbsp; A January 2025 New York Times/Ipsos poll finds 79% of Americans believe transgender-identifying males should not compete in women’s sports.&nbsp; Female athletes across the country are forfeiting matches rather than legitimize the injustice—most notably the 2024 boycotts of San Jose State’s volleyball team. Russ McAlmond is clear: the rights of 99.9% of female athletes cannot be held hostage by the wishes of a tiny fraction of a percent. True compassion does not require girls to step aside so boys can take their places, their medals, and their opportunities. Real equality is not achieved by pretending biology doesn’t exist—it is secured by respecting it.This November, Oregonians have a choice: stand with Jeff Merkley and watch women’s sports be rolled back to pre-Title IX days, or stand with Russ McAlmond and defend the fairness, safety, and human rights of every daughter, sister, and granddaughter who simply wants to compete on a level playing field.The evidence, the public, and justice itself are all on the side of keeping men out of women’s sports.

Merkley is Wrong About Men Competing Against Women in Sports

Southern Wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque with Archeological Park in Jerusalem

Over three terms in the United States Senate, Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley has moved steadily from the mainstream Democratic position of “pro-Israel, pro-peace” to one of the Senate’s most outspoken critics of the Jewish state. What began as occasional concern for Palestinian human rights has hardened into repeated attempts to restrict or block U.S. military aid to Israel—even at moments when Israel was fighting a multi-front war against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This trajectory has placed Merkley in close alignment with the extreme left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other organizations that openly endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, label Israel an “apartheid state,” and in some cases question its very right to exist as a Jewish homeland. Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.&nbsp; A Record of Restricting U.S. Support at Critical Moments&nbsp; In November 2024, Merkley was one of only 19 senators who voted to block the sale of tank rounds, mortar shells, and guided-missile components to Israel—weeks after Iran’s first direct ballistic-missile attack on Israeli cities. In April 2025, he co-sponsored Bernie Sanders-led resolutions to cancel more than $8 billion in offensive-weapons sales, again citing civilian casualties in Gaza while giving little weight to Israel’s simultaneous defense against Iranian proxies on seven fronts. Throughout 2023–2025, Merkley repeatedly voted against or attempted to strip funding for Israel’s Iron Dome and other defensive systems unless paired with sweeping humanitarian conditions that no ally—except Israel—has ever been asked to meet. These votes did not occur in a vacuum. They came at a time when Israel faced an existential threat unprecedented since 1973, yet Merkley’s public statements consistently emphasized Gaza’s humanitarian crisis while downplaying or ignoring the Iranian-orchestrated campaign to annihilate the Jewish state. Alignment with DSA and the Hard-Left Ecosystem Although Merkley is not a formal member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he has enthusiastically accepted the support of DSA chapters and operated in the same political orbit:Portland DSA and Eugene-Springfield DSA have repeatedly praised Merkley as “one of the strongest allies” of their anti-Israel platform. Merkley shares speaking platforms, staff networks, and policy priorities with figures such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush—both avowed supporters of BDS and the “apartheid” libel. J Street has itself moved extremely leftward; Merkley now proudly touts their endorsement while J Street increasingly echoes DSA talking points on conditioning or cutting aid. This is the same DSA that in 2021 unanimously passed a resolution committing the organization to BDS, withdrawing from the Socialist International over its “Zionist” members, and declaring Israel an “settler-colonial apartheid state.” Merkley has never distanced himself from these positions or from the activists who promote them. The Rising Tide of Left-Wing Antisemitism The positions Merkley has embraced—conditioning aid exclusively on Israel, amplifying the “apartheid” smear, and voting to disarm an ally under attack—do not exist in isolation. They are part of a broader surge of antisemitism on the extreme political left that disguises itself as “anti-Zionism.” This ideology rejects the right of the Jewish people alone, among all peoples on earth, to national self-determination in their ancestral homeland. It ignores the fact that Jews are an indigenous Middle Eastern people who maintained continuous presence in the land for more than 3,000 years. It dismisses the reality that 22 Arab states spanning millions of square miles already exist, while the world’s only Jewish state—smaller than Oregon—must constantly justify its existence. Russ McAlmond: A Clear and Unapologetic Contrast Into this environment steps Republican challenger Russ McAlmond, a U.S. Marine veteran who rejects antisemitism in all its forms, including the increasingly common variant that masquerades as anti-Zionism. McAlmond’s campaign is built on the simple, historically grounded proposition that Israel is not the oppressor but the oppressed: a lone Jewish democracy surrounded by hostile regimes and terrorist organizations sworn to its destruction. McAlmond supports unrestricted U.S. military assistance to Israel, robust funding for joint defense projects, and an uncompromising stand against BDS and the “apartheid” libel. He recognizes that weakening the one Jewish state while 22 Arab states and 56 Muslim-majority countries exist is not justice—it is the continuation of a centuries-old pattern of targeting Jews. In 2026, Oregon voters will face a stark choice: continue with an incumbent whose positions have hardened into alignment with the antisemitic hard left, or elect a new senator who proudly and unequivocally stands with America’s most reliable Middle Eastern ally—and with the Jewish people’s right to live in safety in their one and only homeland. Russ McAlmond offers that clear, principled choice for Oregon to support our democratic ally of Israel.&nbsp;

Merkley's Anti-Israel and DSA Alignment

In the vast tapestry of American political stories, few narratives resonate as profoundly as those forged in the fires of personal adversity. Russ McAlmond, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Oregon in the 2026 election, embodies this archetype not as a polished myth but as a raw, unvarnished truth. A U.S. Marine veteran, financial leader, and human rights advocate, McAlmond's journey from a deeply dysfunctional family to the precipice of national leadership offers a compelling blueprint for empathy-driven governance. His life, marked by early heartbreak and hard-won triumphs, positions him uniquely to champion the overlooked voices of Oregon—those from shaky starts who dare to dream big. In an era where politicians often peddle polished perfection, McAlmond's story dismantles the Hollywood illusion of flawless families, revealing instead the gritty reality that shapes resilient leaders. McAlmond's childhood unfolded against a backdrop of quiet chaos, a far cry from the sitcom families that dominate our screens. Born into a home strained by years of relational strife, he witnessed his parents' marriage unravel in slow, painful increments. The divorce, when it finally came, struck while he was still young, leaving behind a fractured foundation that no child should navigate alone. This wasn't a sudden rupture but a protracted unraveling, filled with unspoken tensions and the weight of unmet expectations. For a boy in the making, it was a masterclass in impermanence, teaching him early that love could falter and stability was no guarantee. Yet, in the shadow of this dissolution, McAlmond learned his first lessons in endurance—not from triumph, but from the quiet act of holding on amid the fallout.The ripples of this family discord extended beyond his parents, ensnaring his siblings in their own orbits of struggle. It was against this domestic storm that McAlmond, at the tender age of 18, made a pivotal choice: enlistment in the United States Marine Corps. The decision was dual-edged, born of both escape and conviction. Partly, it was a refuge from the dysfunction that had defined his formative years—a chance to trade familial turmoil for the structured rigor of military life, where orders replaced arguments and camaraderie supplanted solitude. But it was equally a call to something greater: service to his country at a time when the nation was entangled in the throes of war. In the Marines, McAlmond discovered not just discipline but purpose, deploying overseas for 15 grueling months that tested body and spirit. Those years left him with service-connected disabilities, yet they also instilled an unshakeable ethos of duty. He emerged not as a victim of his past but as a guardian of ideals—liberty, resilience, and the unyielding American spirit. Earning two master's degrees (an MBA and MSFS) and two bachelor's alongside his military tenure, McAlmond channeled that early instability into intellectual and professional armor, becoming a seasoned financial planner and founder of the Center for Human Equality in Grants Pass, Oregon. What elevates McAlmond's story from personal memoir to political manifesto is its profound capacity for empathy. Having clawed his way from a non-supportive family, he possesses an intimate understanding of the hidden battles waged in homes that defy the glossy portrayals of Hollywood and television. These are the "shaky foundational family lives" that propel countless Oregonians into adulthood burdened by invisible weights. McAlmond's own ascent—through boot camp drills, overseas foxholes, and late-night study sessions—illuminates the sheer grit required to transform such origins into opportunity. He gets it, not as an abstract policy point, but as the ache in his bones from a childhood spent bracing for the next fracture.This lived wisdom is no mere footnote; it is the cornerstone of why McAlmond would excel as Oregon's senator. The Beaver State, with its rugged coasts, vast timberlands, and rural heartlands, is a mosaic of dreamers and doers who often start from uneven ground. From the opioid-ravaged communities of Josephine County to the veteran-heavy enclaves of Eastern Oregon, many residents grapple with the same foundational deficits McAlmond once did. As a candidate challenging incumbent Democrat Jeff Merkley, McAlmond pledges common-sense leadership rooted in rural priorities: bolstering healthcare access in underserved areas, enhancing public safety without overreach, and rebuilding trust in institutions that have forgotten the working family. His advocacy for ethical individualism—a philosophy he codified in his book Ethical Individualism: A Human Relational Philosophy—urges us to see beyond stereotypes, treating each person as a unique mosaic deserving of respect. In the Senate, this translates to policies that honor resilience: expanded mental health resources for at-risk youth, veteran support that addresses the full spectrum of service's toll, and economic incentives that lift those bootstrapping from broken homes. McAlmond's voice would amplify Oregon's overlooked, ensuring that the Senate chamber echoes with the stories of shaky starts turned into steady strides. In Russ McAlmond, Oregon finds not a savior from central casting, but a senator sculpted by the unscripted drama of real life. His dysfunctional family, far from a liability, is his asset - a forge that tempered vulnerability into vision. As he campaigns across the state, from the misty Willamette Valley to the sun-baked high desert, McAlmond carries the weight of his past not as baggage, but as ballast: a steadying force for those still navigating their own storms. In a political landscape awash with artifice, his authenticity cuts through like a Marine's bayonet—sharp, true, and unapologetically human. If elected, McAlmond won't just represent Oregon; he'll redeem it, proving that from the shakiest foundations, the sturdiest dreams are built. In him, the state sees its own reflection: flawed, fierce, and forever forward.

Dysfunctional Families: Russ Understands

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as a revolutionary moral force against the greatest dehumanization in American history: chattel slavery. While the Democratic Party of that era defended slavery as a “positive good” and a cornerstone of states’ rights, the new Republican Party declared that treating human beings as property based on the group category of race was morally indefensible. Abraham Lincoln, its greatest leader, insisted that America could not endure permanently half-slave and half-free. His election in 1860 and the Republican-led 13th Amendment ended the legal ownership of human beings on the basis of group identity. It was the most profound victory for human equality in our nation’s history. Today, America faces a new form of group-based dehumanization—only the categories have changed. Tribalism, identity politics, and institutional DEI frameworks now divide citizens into fixed, hierarchical groups defined by race, gender, sexuality, or other immutable traits. People are routinely judged, rewarded, punished, stereotyped, or silenced not for their individual choices, character, or merit, but for the group to which bureaucrats or activists assign them. This new tribalism teaches that certain groups are inherently oppressed and others inherently oppressive, that guilt or virtue is inherited through ancestry or appearance, and that equal treatment under the law must give way to “equity” outcomes enforced by group quotas. This is the moral and intellectual successor to the very logic Lincoln and the early Republicans rose up to destroy: the belief that human worth can be determined by membership in a group rather than the content of one’s individual soul. Ethical Individualism, developed by Russ McAlmond and advanced through Oregon’s Center for Human Equality, is the revolutionary 21st-century response—and the direct philosophical heir to Lincoln’s cause. It asserts a simple yet explosive principle: every single human being must be approached, understood, and judged as a unique individual, not as a representative of a group. No presumptions of guilt or innocence, no assigned privileges or disabilities, no forced outcomes based on demographics. Ethical Individualism demands that we extend to every person the presumption of equal moral dignity and individual agency—the same presumption Republicans once demanded for enslaved Black Americans when the rest of society saw only a racial category. In an age where government agencies, corporations, universities, and even K-12 schools sort citizens by identity markers and mete out treatment accordingly, Ethical Individualism is nothing less than counter-revolutionary. It rejects the entire apparatus of collective blame and collective credit. It dismantles the soft bigotry of group expectations that says certain demographics “can’t” succeed without special preferences or “must” be restrained because of historical sins they never committed. It insists that the only way to heal division is to stop dividing—to see each neighbor, coworker, and citizen first and foremost as an unrepeatable individual with his or her own story, dreams, responsibilities, and worth. This is why the Republican Party—the party that once stared down a slaveholding aristocracy and declared “No more judging humans by their group”—has a moral obligation to embrace and champion Ethical Individualism today. Anything less betrays the revolution Lincoln led. Russ McAlmond, founder of the Center for Human Equality and a candidate for U.S. Senate in Oregon, is carrying forward Lincoln’s torch into our time. By endorsing Ethical Individualism as its guiding human-relational philosophy, the Republican Party can once again become the unequivocal party of human freedom and genuine equality: treating every American as an individual, not as a data point in someone else’s tribal ledger. The choice is clear. America can continue down the path of ever-finer group balkanization, where human beings are reduced to avatars of their demographic categories, or the Party of Lincoln can lead the nation back to the radical, revolutionary idea that made us great in the first place: every single person matters as an individual, and no one’s dignity may be sacrificed on the altar of group identity. Ethical Individualism is that idea reborn for the 21st century—and the Republican Party must claim it.

The Party of Human Equality

Group of multigenerational people hugging each others - Support, multiracial and diversity concept - Main focus on senior man with white hairs

Political Ideational Tolerance: Defending the Person While Debating the IdeaWe are living through a cold civil war of the mind. On social media, in family group chats, and sometimes even from elected officials, political disagreement no longer ends with “I think you’re wrong.” It ends with character assassination: accusations of racism, treason, stupidity, hatred, or moral monstrosity. The person who disagrees with us is no longer merely mistaken; they are declared defective as a human being. This habit of attacking the person instead of the argument is one of the most destructive forces in democratic life today.Political ideational tolerance—the refusal to impugn someone’s character or motives simply because their political conclusions differ from ours—is not political correctness or weakness. It is a disciplined ethical choice rooted in Russell McAlmond’s secular Ethical Individualism: every human being possesses equal moral worth by virtue of being a conscious, reasoning individual. A person’s political opinion, no matter how strongly we reject it, is the product of that unique mind wrestling with evidence, values, and life experience. To respond by smearing their character is to abandon reason and to violate the very principle of human equality we claim to defend.Why Character Assassination Is Always Wrong—even When the Idea Is DangerousIdeas and character are not the same thing. A policy proposal can be reckless, immoral, or factually baseless without the person proposing it being reckless, immoral, or dishonest. Conflating the two is intellectual laziness. Dismantling a bad argument with evidence and logic is hard work; calling someone a fascist or a sociopath is easy. The cheap shot is never a substitute for the hard shot. Motive-mongering poisons discourse When we declare that our opponents don’t simply hold wrong views but hold them because they are driven by hatred, greed, cowardice, or a desire to destroy the country, we relieve ourselves of the duty to engage their actual reasoning. We also commit the mirror image of the intolerance we claim to oppose: we deny the possibility that a decent person could, in good faith, reach a different conclusion. Character attacks make agreement impossible and learning improbable If I tell you that you only believe X because you are a bigot, I have just guaranteed that you will never admit you might be wrong about X—because doing so would require you to accept that you are, in fact, a bigot. The moment we turn disagreement into a referendum on someone’s soul, we lock both sides into permanent enmity. The slippery slope from demonization to violence is real and well-trodden Every authoritarian movement in modern history first convinced its followers that their political opponents were not merely wrong but evil incarnate. Once that threshold is crossed, censorship, legal harassment, and eventually physical violence cease to feel like excesses; they feel like justice. The Discipline of Arguing Without AssassinatingReal tolerance does not require us to pretend all positions are equally valid. It requires only that we restrict our criticism to what the person actually said or did, not to imagined defects in their heart or defects inferred from their group identity. We can—and must—say:“That policy would cause immense harm, and here’s the evidence…”&nbsp; “Your premise rests on a factual error…”&nbsp; “That proposal violates a principle I hold to be non-negotiable…” We must never say, or imply, that the person is therefore a bad human being unworthy of respect or civic standing. This discipline is especially important when emotions run high. The more passionately we believe someone is wrong, the more careful we must be to keep the disagreement surgical: aimed at the argument, never at the person’s dignity. Anger is permissible; contempt is not.Toward a Healthier Political CultureDemocracy does not require agreement. It requires only that we continue to recognize one another as legitimate participants in the same political community, even when we believe the other side’s ideas would ruin it. The moment we exile fellow citizens from moral consideration because of their votes or opinions, we have stopped arguing about how to govern a shared society and started treating politics as a war of purification.Russell McAlmond’s Ethical Individualism offers the antidote: judge the idea ruthlessly, but judge the person as "evil" for holding it never. They may be mistaken, but not evil.&nbsp;Grant every individual the same presumption you demand for yourself—that you are reasoning in good faith according to the light you have. Debate as fiercely as the stakes require, but debate as though the person on the other side remains your moral equal even if you never reach agreement, today or ever.Only when we stop trying to win by character assassination can we begin to win—or at least coexist—by persuasion, evidence, and the slow, frustrating, but uniquely human process of reasoning together. That is the only victory worth having in a democracy, and it begins with a simple refusal: attack the argument, never the person.