You're using "fighting words" which is not speech that is protected under the first amendment.
The common response to fighting words like this is a fistfight. In this case you're making a coward's bet that they value their source of income enough not to kick your ass.
A police officer might have (legally) arrested you for trying to start a fight.
I don't see how anything you've said supports the characterization of "cowardly", unless you mean I was wrong to say something that could be classified as "fighting words" and then not back it up with fighting.
Which is the whole problem - the "breach of the peace" occurred when the uniformed gang setup shop to assault, detain, and molest people. What I did was to just not entirely peacefully assent to their rule, which necessarily involves shooting from behind trees. We certainly could use more of it, lest we want to end up having to literally shoot from behind trees.
Is this situation different? Is the difference one of quality or quantity?
It appears to be provoking a kneejerk response from people who don't want to address the question.
You're hiding behind their own civility and restraint. The same way many women think they can freely attack a man under the assumption that many men don't want to hit a women. It's cowardly to use someone else's self-control as a weapon against them.
And you should realize that your personal opinion that they're fascists and child molesters is not even close to a proven fact. It's a slanderous and exaggerated characterization that very few reasonable people would agree with, even those that do not like the TSA at all. Try reporting their "child molestation" to any law enforcement anywhere in the world. No judge and no jury would convict them of your charge. It's not so much different from calling a doctor that checks a child's testicles for problems a molester. Context makes all the difference legally and ethically. You disagree with the ethics but that doesn't make you right. Legally there's no question that you're wrong.
Fighting words - with regard to insults - is a purely childish concept. No reasonable person would punch someone in the mouth over an insult. The word you're looking for is immature - not reasonable.
I didn't ask myself the best way to protest the TSA, and then choose to go find some agents in a grocery store. I was there to buy groceries, which I still accomplished.
> you wouldn't use fighting words like this in a context where you believed they might respond like many reasonable people would: a punch in the mouth
I think our disagreement is fundamentally based on your considering it reasonable for someone to respond violently to a verbal insult? This is going to depend entirely on personal and local culture, and I do not have such expectation. I'm used to the response being a quicker retort, and going your separate ways. If someone resorts to starting a fight it's an automatic loss in the court of public opinion.
> your personal opinion that they're fascists and child molesters
They're patently fascist, having power due to the synergy of government and corporations. Ping-ponging between the two legal regimes is the basis of being able to force you into a warrantless search, yet still dole out federal penalties.
And they're plainly molesters - both with the rummaging through our personal effects, and every time one of their hands brushes my nuts. I personally don't have direct evidence to warranty "child" (although I would imagine they would have to be fondling them too?), but it is a concept our society understands.