The question I have for the open border types is how many can we take in, can we continue to outsource manufacturing jobs to other countries, provide a police force for the world and continue to hold a "good" standard of living for people in America, personally I don't think so, and as a side note once the Iraq war is over expect 1-2 million citizens from that country to be dropped in your neighborhood.
We (the US) are actually taking in very few Iraqi refugees. We (the US) want
them to stay in Iraq to rebuild their own country. This makes sense, of course.
Many Iraqis who don't see it that way often go to
neighboring countries in the ME:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1356188.ece
The Saudi and Kuwaiti response has been to put up fences and armed guards
in those areas easiest for Iraqi illegal aliens to cross
their borders. Jordan
has typically been a bit more friendly.
Now back to the US, you are absolutely correct in the concern about how
we're going to take everyone in, export manufacturing jobs, and maintain
our standard of living. We can't. At some point the Chinese and Japanese
who continue to finance our buying-on-cheap-credit-binge are going to
say "enough" and buy gold and Euros instead of $'s. They are going to
expand their markets into Europe, the ME, and Africa. The Chinese and
Japanese have
maintained and expanded their manufacturing base and only
need cheap resources (oil and other mineral wealth found in ME and Africa)
to keep it going for
their own people. What does America have to offer
them that Europe doesn't at this point as far as high-tech and real wealth?
We have followed the Toffler service/symbolic economy BS to it's logical conclusion
but also
added too many new service workers in the process during a parallel drive
to the NAU empire dream. These were very difficult parallel paths to manage
from the start and that would have to assume a stable system with a solid
safety net and lack of official corruption. We (the US) have become Mexico's
safety net and last I checked, both Mexico and the US suffers from corruption
that would make a post-soviet-KGB-turned-Russian-mafia blush with envy.
At least in the old Soviet Union, they didn't sell off the freakin' highways and
gas lines to
foreigners. Tanks and Submarines, yes, national infrastructure,
NO. And, when it was found foreign interests were getting their fingers into
the Russian bear's honey jar, they got bitten off. In America, as long as the
eagle's feathers get stroked, he's fine with someone running off with the
nest eggs.