There's an old rule of polite society to "never discuss religion or politics," and the reason is that people get emotional about such things, and take them personally. Hurt feelings result, and even occasional fights.

In view of what went on in Los Angeles recently, I'm wondering whether the rule should be amended to include sports.

No, seriously. Some Americans can't resist resorting to violence against supporters of the wrong team:

Despite a massive Los Angeles police presence Thursday night, sporadic violence broke out near Staples Center after the Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.

Crowds hurled bottles and other objects at police, smashed marquees, jumped on vehicles, broke windows, and set rubbish dumpsters and vehicles on fire along Figueroa Street north of Staples Center and on Flower Street.

Police fired non-lethal rounds to disperse the crowd at Figueroa and Venice Boulevard after several small fires were set, as well as at 11th and Hope streets. At 7th and Flower, a car believed to be a taxicab was engulfed in flames.

At least one person was beaten unconscious as fights broke out on Flower Street near Olympic Boulevard. A bicyclist was injured when struck by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department vehicle near 11th and Flower streets, according to the LAPD.

I'm reminded of the time there was a showdown in Philadelphia between the Lakers and the 76ers, and being recently retransplanted to Philadelphia from California, it struck me that my loyalties really ought to be with the Lakers. So in my usual clueless manner, I thought it would be amusing to shout "GO LAKERS!"
Bad idea!

In the Philadelphia area, there are sports fans who do not take kindly to criticism of their opinions or teams. I remember that not long after I moved back to Philadelphia from California, there was huge local hysteria over a showdown between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers. While riding through Philly in a friend's car and thinking it was funny to hear people cheering in the streets for the Lakers, I thought it would be equally funny to evoke (in an imitative if insincere manner) a little pro-California cheering. I opened the window and yelled "GO LAKERS!"

According to my friend who was driving, this was not a good idea at all! He yelled at me to shut up, and said he was worried for our safety, and about his car getting damaged.

You know what? I think he was right to shut me up. In retrospect, I was being an ass, and I shouldn't have shouted out support for the Lakers. (I don't think I need to conduct extensive research to document the fact that soccer games are taken even more seriously in Europe.)

Is this for real? Somehow it just strikes me as beyond the pale to be beaten and/or killed simply for supporting the wrong team. Entertainment is, after all, considered to be a harmless if not healthy activity, and harming people because they don't share your taste in basketball teams is like beating an orchestra patron for liking Stravinsky. It strikes me as insane.

As to the morality involved, society has decided that some crimes are worse than others, and that beating someone for the wrong race, wrong religion, or wrong sexual preference is more evil than beating the same person for other reasons, or for no reason at all.

Why is that? As I observed in a post about hate crime, a good argument can be made that a random attack is more wicked than an attack for a reason (whether good or bad):

Would it be less "hateful" if the same group of kids deliberately singled out a well-dressed businessman for attack? Why? Suppose that in addition to administering a near-fatal clubbing, they took his wallet. Does that make the crime "better"? Less "hateful"? I think you could argue it was at least as hateful, and certainly it was more purposeful. Or does hate have to have more of a random element? But what is random? Isn't there an element of randomness in selecting any stranger as a victim? Had he not just happened to be there, he wouldn't have been selected, but I'm having conceptual difficulties with the idea that simply targeting the next person to come around the corner is any less or any more hateful than targeting the next "easy mark" to come around the corner. Most criminals, of course, select their victims based on the likelihood of a successful attack. In order to do this, criminals utilize a mental process which can only be called discrimination. Don't hate crime laws simply discriminate further, by making a judgment that some victims are better than other victims?

I'm against hate crime legislation, but I think that if we are going to have it, we have to be fair. And the only way I can see to be fair is to give randomness the same minority status as any other victim category. That's because crime victims can be divided into two groups: those who were attacked for a reason, and those who were attacked at random. Aren't random attacks generally seen as worse? I mean, if you're going to be hit over the head with a baseball bat, wouldn't you rather have it happen for a reason than because your attacker was simply lying in wait for the next person to come around the corner? And if this happened, wouldn't it have been because the criminal, by deliberately committing his crime at random, singled you out as a random person?

What better way of assigning people to a group than at random?

So, crazy as it sounds, I would rather be attacked for my nationality or political beliefs than for my taste in sports.

So why is it that "hate" crimes are "worse" than "senseless" crimes? Assume that mob that attacks and beats someone for being of the wrong race is just as savage and animalistic as the mob that attacks and beats someone for liking the wrong sports team. Why is the former type of savagery considered morally more egregious? Is there something more "innocent" about the latter? What is "innocent" about having no excuse? The Rodney King rioters, bad as they were, were at least arguably driven by a sort of vengeance that could find support in certain political circles or among demagogues. But no one that I know of would defend Lakers versus Celtics violence.

So, if we assume that the relative merits of these things can or should be judged, I think the sports rioters are less innocent than angry political-style rioters, and more deserving of punishment. That probably makes me a bad sport.

MORE: Glenn Reynolds links a post by an LAPD officer who says he "hope[s] the Lakers lose every game next year," and describes the violence as celebratory in nature:

I don't know when this peculiar custom began, but it is one I hope -- in vain, surely -- to see ended someday.

I refer to the bizarre practice of some sporting fans who, on the occasion of their favored team having achieved some triumph on the court, field, or ice rink, choose to celebrate the event by running amok in the streets, looting businesses, breaking windows, tipping over automobiles, and setting fire to garbage cans, cars, and, occasionally, the unfortunate passerby.

To hit someone in order to have a good time is sheer animal sadism.