This was exactly the way that I've come to understand it over the last 5-6 months I've been on here. I wouldn't be shocked to find out Steemit Inc has the power to remove or alter the blockchain... Very shocked, and dismayed.

And I totally agree that as a company potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe one day billions of dollars, they have to follow the rules, lest they get slapped around senseless by the government. (Actually, since all of their wealth is in Steem, maybe they could afford to be illegal and just hide their keys really well, the fiscs probably couldn't confiscate their assets... But I understand Ned doesn't want to cross the US government lol...)

I'm not sure if you were saying that us common people though have to follows laws that are wrong or bad... I personally think following laws that are wrong and bad is evil, and I try to limit how evil I am...
I think as common people there's actually a lot of leeway for us to bend the rules when the rules are ridiculous, and to break them when they are darn right unacceptable...

Everybody has to make up their own mind about what they are willing to do.. Anybody breaking a rule has to be willing to deal with the consequences of breaking that law... But are they free and blessed to do it if they feel its the right thing to do?

Absolutely

Anyway, bit of an unrelated tangent... I think you're absolutely right about how Steemit works, and yeah, hopefully we can have laws that do make sense and do work for the majority of people, and for Steemit and free speech in particular, in this case :3