Is it time to start calling out bad cyclists?

This is a non-sequitur. As far as I'm aware no-one on here ever tries to suggest that a hearing impairment should disqualify someone from cycling. However this does not mean that those who can hear should not use this to their best advantage when riding.

There are two points that set apart hearing impairment and earphone use to me.

1 - Music, or whatever else you may be listening to, adds another layer if distraction that wouldn't be present if you couldn't hear anything. If you're paying attention to the music, you're paying less to the road. I ride with my phone on speaker sometimes (boring commute or motivation required) and even then I KNOW I'm slightly distracted by it, although I still make an effort to focus and ride carefully. If it was distracting me dangerously I'd turn it off.

2 - People living with deprivation of one of the senses adapt to fill in that gap. Someone living with hearing impairment will find ways, instinctually, to cope. I remember a friend of mine dating a deaf girl and saying she was a wicked dancer because she danced by FEELING the vibrations of the music. Unless you've been living with earphones CONSTANTLY in your ears for years, you won't have adapted shit, so you are effectively reducing a key sense.

On training rides on long, high-visibility, quiet roads then I think earphones are probably fine, but in the city or even on many/most country roads? No way. Why take away one of the key senses that is keeping you alive?