[drdeca]

I'm a bit confused about why you (seem to) think that is a good analogy?

One wrinkle that might be part of your idea is that instead of comparing the act of promoting immigration to the act of genocide, you are instead comparing the defense of promoting immigration to a denial or approval of genocide. Perhaps this is what the analogy is based on?

However, I expect that you are aware that many people distinguish between killing members of a group or preventing them from reproducing, against just outnumbering the group? Some people tend to distinguish between those.

Another thing, you use the term "ethnically cleanse". The association's people generally have for that term usually include an active eradication. Not just ending up being in the minority of the population. Similarly, due to the word "racial" in the phrase, people often interpret it as referring to an act of effecting in a targeted manner those of some specific "race".

most People would generally not describe the act of dropping fat man and little boy as being acts of "racial cleansing", though they did result in the drastic decrease of a population of a particular ethnicity in a region. People are more interested in the number of deaths that occurred, and other damage done, than they are on the impacts on the population of a particular ethnicity.

For most people to consider something to be intended as "racial cleansing", they generally have to consider the the intent behind the action to be motivated by "racial" things, not just the action to happen to have an effect on "racial" things.

[13thLetter]

Let's put aside the admittedly inflammatory rhetoric. Are you arguing that if the government decided to peacefully change the population's demographics in order to make a currently unpopular political goal more achievable in the future, that would be okay?

Because that's about the most anti-democratic thing imaginable. In a democratic society it is absolutely, unconditionally wrong for the government to do such a thing. The government serves at the pleasure of the people, not the other way around!

[drdeca]

No, I'm not really arguing that.

I'm mainly just arguing against the comparison to racial discrimination/eradication.

I agree with your point that replacing the people so that some different things will be voted for is harmful and undemocratic, at least if done by the government.

But the problem would be in corruption, basically, not genocide, as the one I responded to claimed, and I think that is an important distinction to make.

Bad arguments for things one agrees with should be refuted as well as for ones one disagrees with.

Although, a limitation on my agreement: many potential actions by a state could influence the population in an area in a way that might change how the area votes. I think it would be generally not a good idea to forbid all such actions, because that would only make it such that the impact of how it is set up does not change, it would not make it so that it does not have an effect. That's not to say that there shouldn't be protection against changes that would cause a harmful change in voting population, just that not everything that incidentally would have a change to voting population would be inherently bad.

In the end, I think, it should be the choice of the population as to whether the govt takes some action which could impact the composition of the population, provided that there is no other reason which it is either obligatory or impermissible to take the action in question.

If the population freely chooses an action which will impact the way they make future choices, it seems to me kind of like a person , for example, drinking alcohol, or taking a mind altering substance, whether it is a medicine or a harmful substance.

Unless the action is forbidden (such as, for example, an actual genocide) or obligatory (not sure of what an example would be here.) , the population would choose whether to take an action which would change itself.

Edit:

Something I thought of just after sending that:

Consider woman suffrage. That was a decision which influenced the collection of people who constituted the voting population. I think it was a good decision.

[13thLetter]

OK, then. I think a lot of people here got weirdly hung up on the nature of the demographic change, as if the skin color of the people affected somehow affects its morality.

With regards to women's suffrage, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the constitution after extensive public debate, overwhelming approval by Congress, and approval of a supermajority of state legislatures, exactly as spelled out in the Constitution; it also had support among the public. That was the epitome of a change effected in the proper democratic fashion.

[compostor42]

So if the OP had said that he was glad the black people in his city were being replaced so that he could get better support for his pet political issue, you would have no problem with that?

Somehow I doubt you would say that in polite company.

[drdeca]

What do you mean by replaced? Are you referring to an active specificly targeted removal, and replacement, or are you referring to an action which happens to cause a change in the proportion of ethnicities?

I've already said that I believe that the people should decide whether to take an action that would change the voting population, not just a decision by a single person,

And yes, an action that specifically targets people of a specific ethnicity would be a bad thing,

But not every action which has an influence on the demographics of an area wrt ethnicity is taken with the intent of influencing the demographics of an area wrt ethnicity. The influence can be incidental.

The thing I'm contesting is not that it would be appropriate for a government to cause more immigration in order to change voting patterns. Rather, I'm arguing against trying to make the topic be about ethnicity.