I think calling it stealing is a bit much, but I honestly think this is where to draw the line. I think self-voting is pretty much fine, and I think there are a number of reasons you may not upvote a post you comment on; however, if you're not upvoting the post but turn around an upvote your own comment you are, in fact, an ass.
Yeah stealing may not be the right word ... and there are many times I comment without an upvote to the post.
The thing that gets me is there's a limited pool, so it seems like some kind of abuse to me when someone pays themselves instead of supporting the community.
I'm not totally against the self-upvote (there are strategic reasons for it) but more often than not I feel my upvote should go to authors that bring value to encourage community growth.
Totally agreed. The more I'm on here the more I think maybe upvotes should be restricted by the system, but if it's available everyone should probably take advantage of it equally. As long as you're not exclusively upvoting your own content.