EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s an installment from Tillamook County’s State Representative Cyrus Javadi’s Substack blog, “A Point of Personal Privilege” Oregon legislator and local dentist. Representing District 32, a focus on practical policies and community well-being. This space offers insights on state issues, reflections on leadership, and stories from the Oregon coast, fostering thoughtful dialogue. Posted on Substack, 9/13/25
By State Representative Cyrus Javadi
The best of who we are isn’t gone. It’s just waiting for more of us to show up.
Let’s talk about political violence.
Not just the kind that ends lives. Not just the bomb threats, the assassinations, or the man on a rooftop with a scope. Those are easy to condemn. Almost everyone does. And we should. The death of Charlie Kirk, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, and the shootings of elected officials in Minnesota, those are tragedies. They rattle something deep in us. We pause. We post thoughts and prayers. Then we move on.
But there’s another kind of political violence we don’t pause for.
We reward it.
We clap for it. We run campaigns around it. No, it doesn’t leave bodies on the ground, at least not right away. But it does leave people broken, exiled, fearful, and silent.
It ruins reputations. It destroys careers. It drives public servants from their jobs. It teaches the next person to keep their head down, or risk being next.
Let’s Call It What It Is
You see, if a man burns down a politician’s home, we call it arson. If he posts her address and the walking route she takes with her dog, we call it “free speech.”
In Eugene, officials testified in 2025 about being doxxed, followed, and threatened, with online maps showing exactly where they lived.
A school board chair in Corvallis got death threats and found his campaign sign riddled with bullets.
A teacher resigned after a tweet and received threats so graphic that her children had to be protected.
This week, in the moments after the tragedy in Utah, three Oregon senators were targeted by bomb threats. False alarms, but real enough.
At this point, if you’re a local official in Oregon, the odds are rising that at some point you’ll be threatened, not because you did anything corrupt or illegal, but because you made a policy decision someone didn’t like.
One you were elected to make.
Dehumanizing Is Easy. Repairing Is Hard.
Some of the people we now attack were once our neighbors, our coaches, our teachers, our dentists. And somehow, we’ve convinced ourselves that because they believe differently, they’ve become something other. Something dangerous. Something evil.
And if they’re evil, then anything goes.
Dehumanization is not a glitch in the system. It is the system now. And once we give ourselves permission to treat someone as the villain, it’s only a matter of time before someone steps up to be the hero, to “take care of it” for the rest of us.
That’s what violence often is. Someone deciding they’ve heard enough. That justice won’t come through institutions. That they will restore order.
It’s not just radicalization. It’s a culture that gives people permission.
And here’s the other thing, sometimes, it’s not the person on the news who feels it, it’s someone you love.
When Violence Makes Us Go Quiet
I’ll never forget the phone call I got this week on the day Charlie Kirk was shot.
It was my daughter, who’s going to college in Utah, just minutes from where it happened. She doesn’t agree with Charlie’s politics. But she was horrified. Not just by the fact that someone had been killed, but by the fact that we’re killing each other over our beliefs. Our ideas. Our opinions. Right or wrong. Good or bad.
She said she didn’t want to leave her apartment. She was scared. And not just scared of being caught in the crossfire. She was scared that speaking up at all, about anything, might make her a target.
Think about that.
This is what political violence does, even the threat of it. It doesn’t just silence the person on stage. It tells everyone in the audience to stay quiet. It tells our kids: Don’t share your ideas. Don’t engage. Don’t raise your hand. Because if you do, you’re done.
Maybe not killed. But maybe.
More likely? You lose your job. You’re not invited to hang out. You get harassed by neighbors. You get called a traitor or a bigot or worse.
And slowly, the people who stay involved, the ones still talking, are the ones willing to use force, shame, or fear to impose their ideas.
The rest go quiet.
Disagreement Is Not the Enemy
Now, let’s be clear about something: disagreement is not the problem. It’s the point.
Debate is how we surface better ideas. It’s how we refine policy. It’s how a free people govern themselves.
You’re supposed to push back on your leaders. You’re supposed to question decisions. You’re supposed to protest. The system was designed with conflict in mind.
But disagreement only works when we keep the foundation intact, when we preserve the rules, the rights, and the respect that make disagreement productive instead of destructive.
And if we’re going to silence everyone we disagree with, if we treat dissent as disloyalty and debate as danger, what exactly do we think is going to happen?
You Are Not the Hero
And to those who do this, the ones who harass, threaten, dox, or destroy people for sport or political gain, I want to say this plainly:
You are not the hero in this story.
You are not a culture warrior. You are not a defender of truth. You are not “doing what must be done.”
No, you’re dismantling the very freedoms you claim to protect.
You’re making it harder for good people to serve, to speak up, or to show up at all. You’re teaching the next generation to be afraid of engagement, and rewarding the ones who weaponize fear.
If your response to disagreement is to ruin someone’s life, you’re not protecting democracy. You’re poisoning it.
And just to be even clear: I’m not saying you don’t have a right to speak, or protest, or criticize. You absolutely do.
But if your goal is to destroy people instead of persuade them, don’t pretend you’re saving democracy, because you’re not.
There Is a Better Way
Let me be clear: this is not a plea for civility for civility’s sake. This is not “be nice or be quiet.” This is about the survival of our republic.
Because if we don’t remember how to disagree without turning people into enemies, someone will always feel justified in pulling the trigger. Or sending the threat. Or lighting the match.
And the rest of us? We may keep pretending that wasn’t our fault.
But it is.
We made this culture. And if we have any hope of pulling ourselves out of it, we’re going to have to be braver, not about calling out the other side, but about calling off our own.
It’s not enough to condemn the shooter. We have to look at the ecosystem that grew him. The fear. The fury. The flattening of our neighbors into caricatures. The celebrations when someone “gets what’s coming to them.”
We have to stop rewarding violence, no matter what it looks like.
Because the moment we forget the humanity of the person across from us, that’s the moment we become dangerous too.
And that’s not a left vs. right problem. That’s an American problem. And we’d better fix it while we still can.
Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up
I know the recent political violence, the shooting of Minnesota lawmakers, the death of Charlie Kirk, has left many of us shaken. It’s visceral. It’s horrifying. And in moments like these, it’s easy to shut down. To stay inside. To disengage. To give up, not just on politics, but on people. On ourselves. On each other.
But I want you to know this: hope still leads to change. Courage is still worth it. And the good you have to offer: your words, your voice, your presence, still matters.
We don’t have to let this moment define us. We can choose to keep showing up. To speak with honesty, even when it’s hard. To listen with grace, even when we disagree. To stand firm, without becoming cruel. To stay open, without becoming naïve.
We’ve done it before. Again and again in our history, people have resisted the pull of bitterness and fear. They’ve chosen compassion over contempt. Integrity over popularity. They’ve found ways to hold the line without drawing blood.
And so can we. We can and we must do it again. And again. And again.
Don’t hide. Don’t shut down. Don’t let the loudest, angriest voices convince you that silence is safer.
Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Choose not to tear someone down, online or in person, just because they see the world differently than you do.
Party labels don’t matter that much. They certainly don’t matter more than the life, the dignity, or the well-being of another human being.
So speak. Disagree. Engage. But do it in a way that makes people want to stay in the conversation, not run from it.
Because the best of who we are isn’t gone. It’s just waiting for more of us to show up.