Important subject and good post!
I think the downvoting is a difficult one..just as the whole Kokesh concept is a difficult one.
Personally I only use downvotes on spam. But even if you consider yourself anarchist or individualist we are in this community voluntarily. A social platform is nesecarilly a voluntary place. We chose to be here, and the whole premise of the platform is the social aspect. And this platform has certain functions that anyone is free to use. And the market choses.
So if we agree that as of now the Blockchain and sites like steemit are very free market sort of concepts and we are free to create a better version of Steemit if we want to, yet we stick around on Steemit - then I see no problem with the market (people) deciding how downvotes are utilized. If people here chose to use downvotes to stop so called "reward pool raping" and those who disagree continues to use the platform..well..I don't see any problems with that. If the market doesn't like that the market will leave Steemit dead and abandoned.
I haven't been very engaged in Kokesh and the US election (since I'm a european we have more than enough to worry about here) but his methods are indeed worthy of some critics.
I agree 100%. A lot of folks don’t realize this and think of Steemit as an involuntary association of people, like in a country. But you are right. This is why using flags must be done carefully (if at all), in my opinion, by each individual market actor. Flagging should only be done in the best interest of the platform. Otherwise the market may go elsewhere.
Thanks for the excellent commentary.