This is interesting, not just because of the content, but how the definition of ‘fighting words’ has ostensibly changed.

Where I grew up, if someone insulted you and threatened to punch you in the nose, that meant exactly that. Threatening any violence in a context that could be real was considered to be ‘fighting words’ – not free speech.

Satire might be something like ‘babies always get all the strawberry lollipops — makes me want to punch the lollipop vendor in the nose’ — perhaps in poor taste, but obviously silly.

Punching cyclists in the nose is something that happens, and as such really isn’t satire.

We had a recent issue on a local blog where commenters recommended tying a local Chinese language prof from a tree and beating him until his stomach burst and ‘Mao’s little Red Book came out.’ He was a white guy.

Threatening someone with hanging and adding a small comment at the end is delivering fighting words. But somehow, newspaper editors, in their cowardly bowing to the sociopathic Right, have lost their perspective.

It isn’t a free speech issue. It’s a ‘fighting words’ issue.

I’d like to make one important distinction that you’ve overlooked between advocating for violence against bicyclists and advocating violence against gays, blacks, etc. Which is that we choose to use bicycles as a form of transportation. Blacks and gays do not choose to be as they are, they are discriminated and oppressed because of something they cannot reasonably be expected to change about themselves. This is not true for bicyclists and creates a real distinction in terms of the implications of institutional oppression.
I would sooner liken abuse of bicyclists to the violence and persecution that communists and socialists experienced in this country during the 1940’s and ’50s (and for a long time since for that matter). These folks were working for the common good, yet they were demonized…same with bicyclists.
I recognize that using communists doesn’t prove your point. Perhaps there are better examples, but I think its misguided to compare us (cyclists) as a group to blacks or gays, who are completely to avoid persecution by changing their clothes and getting in a car.

-Ian