Virginia’s New Incivility

Hate the man, hate his children.

A month ago Fox News television host Tucker Carlson was dining at the Farmington Country Club, just outside Charlottesville, with two of his children and family friends. In a tweet yesterday, he described the following incident:

Toward the end of the meal, my 19-year-old daughter went to the bathroom with a friend. On their way back through the bar, a middle aged man stopped my daughter and asked if she was sitting with Tucker Carlson. My daughter had never seen the man before. She answered: “That’s my dad,” and pointed to me. The man responded, “Are you Tucker’s whore?” He then called her a “fucking cunt.”

My daughter returned to the table in tears. She soon left the table and the club. My son, who is also a student, went into the bar to confront the man. I followed. My son asked the main if he’d called his sister a “whore” and a “cunt.” The man admitted that he had, and again became profane. My son thew a glass of red wine in the man’s face and told him to leave the bar, which he soon did.

Immediately after the incident, I described these events to the management of the Farmington Country Club. The club spent more than three weeks investigating the incident. Last week, they revoked the man’s membership and threw him out of the club.

I love my children. It took enormous self-control not to beat the man with a chair, which is what I wanted to do. I think any father can understand the overwhelming rage and shock that I felt seeing my teenage daughter attacked by a stranger. But I restrained myself. I did not assault this man, and neither did not son. That is a lie. Nor did I know the man was gay or Latino, not that it would have mattered. What happened on October 13 has nothing to do with identify politics. It was a grotesque violation of decency. I’ve never see anything like it in my life.

Once upon a time, Virginians prided themselves on their civility. But many today deride the virtues of courtesy and self-restraint as tools of social oppression created by privileged elites. It’s nice to know that at least the Farmington Country Club is willing to enforce basic norms of behavior. Had the incident occurred anywhere else, I doubt the man would have been chastised in any way.