Agreed, feels like ransom to me... 

Set you as my proxy. 

This is a temporary solution. I share many of your concerns about how someone else's property is being handled here.  I put <a href="https://steemit.com/softfork222/@lukestokes/what-is-property-is-it-defined-by-consensus">my thoughts here</a>. A blockchain is permissionless and immutable. This is similar to a <a href="https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/User_Activated_Soft_Fork">User Activated Soft Fork</a>. We also need to evolve past nation states defining property and this might be an important step in that direction. Those who disagree should certainly vote. Thank you for providing a proxy to make this easy.

I appreciate your position and initially I felt this way. However there are enough signals and inconsistencies from the TRON side of the equation that show there is an unignorable potential threat to the continued existence of the Steem blockchain.  The participating witnesses came to decide that it would be better to proactively address this with a temporary and reversible soft fork rather than having to reactively address it with a hard fork which would be incredibly more difficult and divisive.

Here are some links that helped put me over the fence on this decision:
[Tron Community in Uproar as Genesis Coins Used in Super Reps Vote - Feb 19th, 2020](https://cointelegraph.com/news/tron-community-in-uproar-as-genesis-coins-used-in-super-reps-vote)

February 17th, Justin Sun signaling the original plan was still in place,  despite some talk to the contrary in the AMA on the 15th: https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1229304521123192832

>**Justin Sun**
>Steemit to Shift Its Proprietary Blockchain & Token to #TRON Network.
#TRON has just partnered with @steemit
, a major blockchain-based blogging & social networking website to provide its network for #Steemit services.

February 18th Justin Sun tweets a link to a video which continues to indicate the intention to deprecate Steem: https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1229696090552717312


![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV8BDiYPhTduefrkpw79Pu2Ae39ayPD2c8gTUNDm2iLn6/image.png)


Edit: I expanded upon the background as much as I could in this post: [The Case For the Temporary Soft Fork](https://steemit.com/steem/@pfunk/the-case-for-the-temporary-soft-fork)

I always appreciated your dev know-how, inerta, and even though we seemingly completely disagree on this subject, I still respect you.

> One of the things we could always say about Steem is that it was censorship resistant.

It was never truly censorship resistant, without excluding the Steemit Inc stake. Which was only being done based on good faith and at this point, good faith is sadly not good enough anymore.

There is no way for the community to counter potentially 80m SP in witness voting and that stake wasn't created or bought organically. Now, nobody is saying that Steemit Inc would do that, **but** simply trusting would be foolish.

>  Even if you got a downvote, it's not censorship because what you said at least made it to the blockchain.

You couldn't say it better. 
I wonder why they didn't freeze all ninja mined steem.

Can't justify setting you as my proxy since I am a witness, but I am fully against this tyrannical bs.

I respect this stance @interia

Justin has no obligation not use the ill-gotten STEEM from the Ninja Mine for devious actions. The very beginnings of this Blockhain lacked integrity. As of today we finally have the integrity you speak of. This is in fact a one of a kind situation and must be dealt with as such. Maybe Justin will think before going on another shopping Spree. He saw us as some cute puppies in the window but now realizes we're a pack of Wolves with sharp teeth and a whole hell of a lot of wit, knowledge and sense of community. Now he's on OUR Blockchain and if he wants to walk on the grass he's gonna need to scoop up our poop. Ned did us a great disservice on many levels. He put us in this position. He could have made the sale of Steemit Inc contingent upon honoring the "Social Agreement" he made with the community. We need this defensive proactive measure in order to force some clarity and some FUCKING GODAMN COMMUNICATION from Steemit Inc. Their lack of communication simply forces our hand because we have to assume the worse. They basically set themselves up for this. Justin has also proven himself untrustworthy on numerous occasions so I am quite satisfied with this Softfork.

>Witnesses are willing to abandon the principles of blockchain technology 

How did they abandon it? The beginning of this chain lacked integrity. The stake gained is tainted stake that came with strings attached. 
We all knew that. Justin might have not but he should take that to Ned. 

I don't need to set a proxy. Just removed them all.