I suggest you read blocktrades' post about cryptocurrency forks. No one is making legal claims here, at least I'm not. People are deciding what software they want to use and what transactions they want to process, mostly on the basis of what is best for Steem, and what sort of substantive fairness, integrity, and consistency with stated purpose they have come to expect when it comes to usage of the ninja-mined stake.

You seem to think that you can force witnesses to process transactions they believe to be harmful and which they don't support, or that you can force stakeholders to elect witnesses who will do so. I don't see where that obligation comes from; they never made such a promise, nor entered into such a contract.

When you refer to freezing assets in the perhaps more familiar legal sense, that involves either physical seizure or an order (backed by the force of law, and ultimately, the threat of physical seizure) against a third party not to move or transfer the assets. In that case, yes, there is a burden of proof, legal process, and formalities that understandably must be followed to bring that use of force to bear.

That's also not at all what is happening here. The witnesses are voluntarily deciding what software they want to run and what transactions they decline to process. And stakeholders are voluntarily electing those witnesses, especially now after several days when stakeholders have had ample opportunity to vote those witnesses out, if that's what they wanted. In fact, stakeholders have, overall, increased votes for the witnesses supporting the fork and decreased votes for those not supporting it.

Anyway, I certainly agree with you in hoping for a positive resolution. But that doesn't mean that anything goes and we have to sign up for what many stakeholders see as a potentially devastating outcome by giving a potentially-hostile competitor controlling interest despite the stake the competitor is holding having been designated as non-voting. That is nuts.

Let's move forward to a positive resolution that works for Steem and that the voting stakeholders of Steem agree is positive.

If I were in any of you guys

Please reconsider this sort of us-vs-them mentality and phrasing. I'm not 'you guys', I'm a stakeholder just like you and for what it is worth I was not personally invited to the meeting. As as stakeholder, I support any effort to advance the success of Steem through meeting and discussions, though, to the extent it is productive.