[epidemian]

I'm not sure if this comment was troll bait; i'm going to reply as if it weren't.

> if they want to be xenophobic, what's the problem?

One of the problems is that even if the majority of people within a country are xenophobic and they get to decide the lays on a majority basis, there will still be people form other countries living there, or people who in general will be disadvantaged by xenophobic laws.

It's nice for laws to not be dictated only by a majority, but by a plurality. Instead of thinking "what benefits >50% of people is the right thing" we can think "what benefits the most people, including minorities", or "what avoids hurting the most people" to be the right things :)