But guess what, on steemit you can actually use your vote to FLAG content you think is blatant spam.

Yes. This is the idea. Unfortunately it's not happening. People save their flag for getting revenge on someone.

Use the bots so we can take money from the spammers and be able to promote great content and flag crap content.

Used sparingly, this argument works. It's just that we are nearing the point where there's more money to be made from the right bots than there is from actual readers, because so few people actually read anything on steemit but instead are just prowling around looking for curation rewards or "upvote for upvote" garbage.

If we do not do this democracy on steemit has died and it will continue to head towards some tyrannical oligarchy / wasteland like it is beginning to.

Umm... Yeah. Pretty much.
This site's got potential, and the idea upon which it is built is great, but it's got some serious kinks and I don't mean the kind you want the Thai-hostel-dwelling slutty European girls in this guy's article to have.
I'd honestly kind of like to see the curator system go the way of the dinosaur. I think if people actually came to Steemit to read articles of interest, instead of chasing what they hope will be quick or easy money, then the environment of this platform would start to improve.