I've seen plenty of downvotes around from people who didn't understand what was being said/wanting to exert opinions. To be honest, that partly gets me to just not want to contribute thoughts since they may be unpopular/do not jive with a hive mentality, and has gotten me to visit the site less for the comments, especially with the recent tweaks.
It'd be nice if something could be figured out to discourage this behavior through reduction of the value of the downvotes of such, especially if a comment has not had a response to explain the downvote.
If you can phrase them interestingly and insightfully, they're not going to be downvoted into oblivion. Perhaps you should put in the effort to explain them to the uninitiated and you might change the dominant opinion?
Otherwise it seems like a hit and run for many people, from the outside.
It'd be nice if something could be figured out to discourage this behavior through reduction of the value of the downvotes of such, especially if a comment has not had a response to explain the downvote.