Every now and then, I need to be reminded why I started this colossal waste of my time in the first place. I suppose if I had to pick one underlying motivation for this blog, it has to be the average Boston sports fan.

The average Boston sports fan is intellectually challenged. The average Boston sports fan is incapable of carrying on a serious discussion of any of the local sports teams without resorting to profanity and/or nonsensical non sequiturs. The average Boston sports fan is a bully.

In short, the average Boston sports fan is such a sterling paragon of those admirable qualities we call virtues that I continually reevaluate my belief in evolution, my belief in a Higher Power and the possibility that the Founding Fathers were wise to entrust any portion of power to the people.

Two days ago, I posted and I mentioned that it was much more difficult to root for the New York Giants than it has been to root for the Yankees because the Giants do not have a rivalry with the Patriots. A fair specimen of the average Boston sports fan as described above elected to weigh in with an inspired comment seemingly ripped from the transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1854. Here it is, in all its unexpurgated form:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The sports world just keeps getting more depressin...":

Suck a dick. Who do you think cheers for the Patriots, moron? 90%of Patriots fans are Red Sox fans too.

Interesting, isn't it. Because 90% of Patriots fans also root for the Red Sox, somehow the Patriots and the Giants are natural rivals in the NFL. I should, myself, have assumed that the New York Jets would be more likely rivals, given that the Jets play in the same division as the Patriots while the Giants are in the other conference. But that's just me.

I also find it rather amusing that I am the moron because I failed to see the logic contained therein. More astonishing, perhaps, to some reader less familiar with the limited vocabulary for invective found in that curious subset of the human race that is the Boston sports fan is the opening statement. Or perhaps it's just wishful thinking on the part of a segment of my readership.

For years, I have been told that New England residents stand out from the rest of America because they are more intelligent and better educated. As I look back on that sentiment now that I am older and more cynical, I seem to recall every one who told me that being from New England.

Based on the egregious examples of personal misconduct exhibited by Boston fans and Bostonians in general (the infamous episode of pizza throwing at Fenway Park and the fight at the Boston Pops last April leap to mind), I find a disturbing preponderance of evidence against the notion that New Englanders are more intelligent than the rest of America.

I have, to this point, been somewhat unfair. I have a number of friends who root for the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Celtics and a few who even root for the Bruins. They aren't typical Boston fans as generalized here tonight. They are capable of carrying on rational discussions about any and all of the local teams, they do not resort to petty name calling and sophomoric bullying from behind a pall of anonymity. In short, they leave that sort of thing to me. So I apologize to any of my friends who may have been offended by tonight's post.

It's getting so that a person can't take a look at the world around him or her without feeling a strong sense of disgust at the brotherhood of human beings. Every once in a while, it will work out that the event that triggers said disgust is also uproariously funny. An example can be found in the famous episode from last month where one Red Sox fan channeled his displeasure at another fan who questioned his taste in haute cuisine into a small ball of rage and hurled a slab of pizza off the offender's dome.

Tonight, another event must be discussed which shows the breakdown of common decency in a very amusing fashion. One moron went to the symphony and would not shut his big yapper, to borrow a phrase from the late, lamented Chris Farley. Another patron requested that the chatty man keep his peace. And somewhere between there and comic immortality, a donnybrook erupted in the balcony at Symphony Hall in what once passed for the Athens of America before Music City (Nashville) built a replica of the Parthenon and stole the title away from Boston. And that brings us to tonight's tool of note segment.

What manner of man gets into a fistfight at a Boston Pops concert? Maybe if it were the big show on the Fourth of July outdoors on the Esplanade, I could see it. But at Symphony Hall? I know no man likes to get shushed (I imagine no woman cares for it either, but I try not to speak for my female readers), but this is simply not the way adults ought to behave. But have we really sunk so low as a society that unfinished business must be settled amid the dulcet tones of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony?

Lost in all this fanfare is a better question: why was Ben Folds performing with the Boston Pops? I understand that his work will be regarded by subsequent generations as the acme of technical precision and heart-felt passion in popular music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but does he really belong on stage in Boston Symphony Hall? Hell, who even knew he was still alive before all this happened?

I suppose I shouldn't lament the decline and fall of American civilization. After all, if it weren't for people acting like tools and other tools recording the scene for posterity (and our enjoyment), where would I find my material for these tool of note segments that so delight you. That's the nature of a catch 22. The world is falling apart around us, and all you can do sometimes is laugh.

It's just sad to see that once was the Cradle of American Liberty has descended into a morass of license. In case you wonder, the difference between liberty and license is simple. Liberty implies that you have the freedom to do what you want and the common sense to employ common courtesy. License means you settle your differences by throwing punches or pieces of pizza or worse as the opportunities present themselves with no regard for decorum.