I was trying to help him.  It is obvious that he wasn't a threat to me, but I thought that he was a threat to himself and his brand-new Steemit account.  

But you are right that it was not worth it to point it out to him.  I wasted too much of my own time.  I somehow have to better diagnose when people might actually appreciate my help.  So many people can not accept constructive and helpful criticism.  

 Believe it or not, I even want to help people here on Steemit who do not agree with me on my favorite topics.  I hate to see any account destroyed because of ignorance of the landscape here at Steemit.  Steemit is not like Facebook, but new people don't always realize that.

Do you know why this statement is false? I mean the whole "intent is clear to any reader"...because you wouldn't feel comfortable saying this to her if you thought it was true. You want to argue that? What if Bernie was an anti vaxxer? You know damn well he would have no problem flagging this guy, and then potentially flagging you for this comment.  The message this sends to @canadian-coconut is that she should be more like him, then she would deal with less resistance, at least from those whose accounts she could nuke, because people would be afraid.

Either way I don't agree that it's 'clear that she's threatening anyone', considering how much time she took to explain her position to this guy. It's quite obvious that she is not into using her flags to make a point.  Of course, as  you say, it would be within her right to do that....which is why I find your entire argument with all of us here confusing.  You want to make sure this new guy knows he can go ahead and flag whomever he wants, I was hoping to warn him off doing that before he does actually get his account tanked to zero. You also want to tell us that we shouldn't be saying what we're saying, seriously I am just confused by you. What is it that you believe exactly? Or are you just playing devil's advocate here?

Obviously he *can* flag to disagree, no one is standing behind him that's going to twist his arm back when he goes to click it. If your argument is that we don't have a right to feel that someone shouldn't, we can agree to disagree on that point. I've actually agreed with a lot of the flags bernie has given out in his time here, but I happen to disagree with them being used to express an opinion. I would feel that way even if I shared his opinion on whatever subject it was. That's my personal feelings. You're entitled to yours.

I don't know if it's my computer or steemit itself, but I don't get taken directly to people's comments anymore, I get taken to the beginning of the article and have to scroll through until I find the comment. Which is super annoying and the reason I'm not going to go to all of the comments you left me and why I chose to respond to this one.

edit: I also should add that she would not have even made that statement if he was just expressing himself throughout without flagging.