@stabilowl already covered some of what I intended to say upon seeing your edit. I've upvoted his comment and I'll respond in my own words anyway.

Even though I downvoted this post I'd like to extend a belated welcome to you here. It's regretful that you didn't have the reception you expected with this post but there are some things I want to clear up.

Only 20% of the 280 people down voted me. It seems to me that there is a small tyrannical aspect going on here on Steemit, and this platform isn’t really looking like it really is an open platform. It looks really closed down to where the smallest percentage of users dictate what works and what doesn’t work.

Steem allows positively weighted votes and negatively weighted votes on posts and comments. These are upvotes and downvotes. The "flag" concept on Steemit, a front end for Steem, is misleading and a poor choice of design. And a stubborn one at that since it has not been changed after much valid criticism.

It is every stakeholders right according to the culture and the rules of the blockchain to vote as they please. So to call it not open is the opposite of what it really is.

Generally voters vote with their own interests in mind as well as the network's. Upvotes return voters some curation rewards, while downvotes return nothing. Therefore it's not common for people to downvote with their own stake because it's usually not in their interests. So for someone to downvote a post like this it sometimes means that they might be doing it for the benefit of the network as a whole. Whether it's a disagreement on a post's rewards or disagreement with questionable post content, or some other reason.

These downvotes aren't tyrannical, they're part of Steem. Your post still has plenty of rewards and is still topping the list of trending from the votes you purchased.

Anyway, I’m learning the ropes as I go here, I do respect being inside of your house, and I will abide by the things I learn of what is “acceptable’ and not.

You're a stakeholder, this is your house too! But like anywhere, people are going to have different opinions and beliefs.