It's a dick move because the expected social arrangement at an American restaurant with table service is that the customer tips the waiter. American labor laws encode this expectation and people who work as waiters expect part of their compensation to come from that arrangement.
If you eat a table service restaurant and refuse to tip because you think the arrangement is stupid (which it is), you're directly harming the person who serves you by reducing their wages for the amount of time they spent on you. You're taking a philosophical stand (at best, at worst you're just being cheap) at the cost of a real person's income. This person who has no control over the standard tipping arrangement. Your protest does not cause any change and accomplishes nothing expect worsening the day of someone who provided you a service expecting you to hold up your end of the customarily agreed upon bargain. The waiter is not offered a chance to agree to this bum deal (and if you walked into a restaurant and said "who's willing to serve me with no tip to protest the stupidity of American tipping culture?" you'd be rightfully laughed out of the room).
That's why it's a dick move.
There are plenty of options for getting fed which do not involve table service, and if you want to protest tipping culture by not participating in it, you should patronize restaurants which either don't have table service or have a no tipping policy, rather than taking it out on low level wait staff.
The law does not require customers to tip, it requires employers to pay employees at least minimum wage if employees do not receive enough tips to meet the minimum wage requirements.
If you eat a table service restaurant and refuse to tip because you think the arrangement is stupid (which it is), you're directly harming the person who serves you by reducing their wages for the amount of time they spent on you. You're taking a philosophical stand (at best, at worst you're just being cheap) at the cost of a real person's income. This person who has no control over the standard tipping arrangement. Your protest does not cause any change and accomplishes nothing expect worsening the day of someone who provided you a service expecting you to hold up your end of the customarily agreed upon bargain. The waiter is not offered a chance to agree to this bum deal (and if you walked into a restaurant and said "who's willing to serve me with no tip to protest the stupidity of American tipping culture?" you'd be rightfully laughed out of the room).
That's why it's a dick move.
There are plenty of options for getting fed which do not involve table service, and if you want to protest tipping culture by not participating in it, you should patronize restaurants which either don't have table service or have a no tipping policy, rather than taking it out on low level wait staff.