"As you point out the fervor of discussion after the sale to Tron caused you to give the matter thought, and to vote accordingly."

I may not have been clear, I investigated who they were voting for and if their vote selections were in fact against downvotes based on their polling. It turned out they didn't vote for any of the witnesses who said they were against downvotes. In fact, they voted for one witness that polled that he/or/she was in favor of downvotes. That's why I removed them from my proxy.

"Neutrality isn't shooting both sides of a conflict equally."

Voting equally for socks and community witnesses, if that's what they did, has the effect of showing support to both sides, but it does not empower one above the other. The simple criteria used too ice out HIVEians was too simple and created a pretty pointless dragnet that isolated many Steemians with low SP. It reveals that the votes are not votes, they are exercises in obedience. They are "do this, or else." The votes have become ultimatums.

"Finally, nobody did anything to anyone's stake. Not one Steem was taken or frozen or anything. We just left."

Everyone whose account was duplicated "left" and or re-spawned bilocally onto the HIVE chain and also exist on the Steem chain. Those 300 HIVEians have equal right to their stake, and if they are excluded because of how they voted on a different blockchain it proves that the vote is not a vote, it's an ultimatum? Why bother to try and garner the consensus of a group if it will not be authentic?

"Hive did not do them wrong, under any theory, by not giving them free tokens, and that's the simple fact."

HIVE is demonstrating that when it tries to garner the consensus of a group it will act prejudicial towards individuals who participate. This means that future votes will be marred by this and you won't have a genuine consensus based on the determination of the voter. You'll have a result that is an artifice. I don't think you are comprehending what voting is or why people do it.

You keep saying that "we left" but it is not just you that left. Everyone's accounts were duplicated here on HIVE and everyone expected the air drop in the case of a community split. Not everyone wanted a community split and this is probably why many people voted how they did. Regardless of why they voted, you absolutely must give them the option to adhere to the will of the group without retributive action (or inaction) otherwise we are just making a joke of our voting system and will quickly become that in which we so desperately tried to avoid.

It's a bit like struggling to get out of quicksand, the harder you try the more you fall. We went full on despot mode to protect ourselves from being taken over by despots. Can you imagine if nation states deprived people of government benefits based on what party they voted for? If you think about it that way, I'm sure you can see where that leads.