All men are by nature equal, But differ greatly in the sequel. A quarter of a millennium later, that couplet from a colonial American almanac defines an urgent challenge. Modern society increases how, and the predictability of how much, people differ in the sequel. If America is to be equitable, with careers open to all talents and competent citizens capable of making their way in an increasingly demanding world, Americans must heed the warnings implicit in observations from two heroes of modern conservatism. In “The Constitution of Liberty” (1960), Friedrich Hayek noted that families are the primary transmitters of human capital — habits, mores, education. Hence families, much more than other social institutions or programs, are determinative of academic and vocational success. In “The Unheavenly City” (1970), Edward C. Banfield wrote: “All education favors the middle- and upper-class child, because to be middle or upper class is to have qualities that make one particularly educable.” Elaborating on this theme, Jerry Z. Muller, a Catholic University historian, argues in the March/April 2013 issue of Foreign Affairs that expanding equality of opportunity increases inequality because some people are simply better able than others to exploit opportunities. And “assortative mating” — likes marrying likes — concentrates class advantages, further expanding inequality. As Muller says, “formal schooling itself plays a relatively minor role in creating or perpetuating achievement gaps” that originate “in the different levels of human capital children possess when they enter school.” The Cato Institute’s Brink Lindsey argues in “Human Capitalism: How Economic Growth Has Made Us Smarter — and More Unequal” that economic growth intensifies society’s complexity, which “has opened a great divide between those who have mastered its requirements and those who haven’t.” Modernity — education-based complexity — intensifies the demands on mental abilities. People invest increasingly in human capital — especially education — because status and achievement increasingly depend on possession of the right knowledge. Lindsey cites research showing that “by the time they reach age 3, children of professional parents have heard some 45 million words addressed to them — as opposed to only 26 million words for working-class kids, and a mere 13 million words in the case of kids on welfare.” So, class distinctions in vocabularies are already large among toddlers. Parental choices of neighborhoods and schools mean that children of college-educated parents hang out together. Such peer associations may have as much effect on a child’s development as do parents. These factors, Lindsey says, explain why “people raised in the upper middle class are far more likely to stay there than move down, while people raised in the working class are far more likely to stay there than move up.” In a historical blink, Lindsey says, humanity has moved from lives rooted in a remembered past to lives focused on an imagined future. This future orientation favors the intellectually nimble. “Who gets ahead, who struggles to keep up, and who gets left behind are now determined primarily by how people cope with the mental challenges of complexity.” And coping skills are incubated in families. Today, the dominant distinction defining socioeconomic class is between those with and without college degrees. Graduates earn 70 percent more than those with only high school diplomas. In 1980, the difference was just 30 percent. Soon the crucial distinction will be between those with meaningful and those with worthless college degrees. Many colleges are becoming less demanding as they become more expensive: They rake in money — much of it from government-subsidized tuition grants — by taking in many marginally qualified students who are motivated only to acquire a credential, and who learn little. Lindsey reports that in 1961, full-time college students reported studying 25 hours a week on average; by 2003, average studying time had fallen to 13 hours. Half of today’s students take no courses requiring more than 20 pages of writing in a semester. Given the role of practice in developing expertise, “the conclusion that college students are learning less than they used to seems unavoidable.” Small wonder those with college degrees occupying jobs that do not require a high school diploma include 1.4 million retail salespeople and cashiers, half a million waiters, bartenders and janitors, and many more. “Most American kids,” Lindsey concludes, “are now raised in an environment that is arguably less favorable for developing human capital than that in which their parents were raised.” America’s limited-government project is at risk because the nation’s foundational faith in individualism cannot survive unless upward mobility is a fact. George Will is a columnist with the Washington Post group.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrat President of the U.S. Senate, is apparently getting uncomfortable about the amnesty bill’s polling results. As this is written Wednesday morning, it looked like Reid would call for a final floor vote sometime very soon. He said he might keep the Senate working all weekend. Why? Speed and timing are important to all hustles. In simple terms, the deal is this: The Democrats will pretend they would actually plan do something to secure American borders and some of the Republicans will ignore 1986 and pretend that legalizing immigration crime will somehow prevent more illegal activity. And that they will win the White House in 2016 as a result. And that we can solve our unemployment crisis by importing millions of additional foreign workers. The more the pro-enforcement Americans learn about what National Review correctly calls “Rubio’s Folly,” the more pressure they are putting on their senators to put the entire 1,000 pages into a shredder. The “Vote no!” calls and emails are now flooding into Senate offices. To deter possible senatorial trickery, it is important to understand how the Senate voting procedure works. Before the body begins debate on any bill, it must vote to pass a “motion to proceed.” That has been done and required 60 votes. Then, to end debate, a motion called “final cloture” must also collect at least 60 votes. Only then can a final floor vote occur in which a simple majority can pass the bill (for the Obama-voter readers: there are 100 Senate seats, making 51 a majority). Why is this notable? Because in this system, senators who want to help a bill pass, but don’t want their fingerprints on it, can vote “yes” on final cloture, thereby allowing 51 of their colleagues to vote “yes” on the actual legislation. While they then vote “no.” “Yes” on final cloture and “no” on the actual legislation is how Georgia’s Senator Johnny Isakson voted on the unrelated gun bill earlier this year. National Review also quantifies the replacement worker figures in the bill with this comparison: “the 2007 Bush-Kennedy proposal was rejected in part because it would have added 125,000 new guest workers. The Gang of Eight bill would add 1.6 million in the first year, and about 600,000 a year after that: That’s the population of Philadelphia in year one and the population of Boston each year after” the conservative editors warned this week. That is in addition to the 33 million permanent immigrants the Obama-directed legislation would help add to the U.S. population in the next 10 years. You read that correctly — “Obama-directed.” A senior White House official recently told the New Yorker magazine that “no decisions are being made without talking to us about it ... this does not fly if we’re not O.K. with it.” Example of something that “does not fly?” for Obama? Try this: On Tuesday, the Senate considered two amendments that would have required the federal government to enforce security laws already in place before granting the illegal aliens another amnesty. One, from Sen. John Thune (R- S.D.), required the federal government to complete 350 miles of reinforced, double-layered fencing along the southwest border with Mexico before illegal aliens could be legalized. The amendment would have also required another 350 miles of fencing to be constructed before they could obtain green cards. The fencing requirement was already mandated in the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The amendment failed 39-to-54. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who claims to support a border fence, voted “no” along with the Gang of Eight Republicans. Another amendment, from Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), would have required the federal government to complete the biometric entry/exit system at all ports of entry — including land crossings — before amnesty. Congress already mandated such a system in 1996. And five times since. Including in 2002, following the horror of 9/11. At least six of the 9/11 terrorists overstayed their visas. The amendment failed 36-to-58. “I-wanna-be-president” Marco Rubio said just last week that the tracking system was the “lynchpin to the whole bill.” In May, he told several news outlets he supported such a monitoring system. On Tuesday, however, along with John McCain, Lindsey Graham and the Obama Democrats, Rubio voted against the visa tracking amendment. Got that? Please direct all “does anybody remember 1986 or 9/11 or the American worker?” questions to both of Georgia’s Republican Senators. They should vote “no” on allowing a final floor vote. D.A. King is president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society and a nationally recognized authority on immigration. He is not a member of any political party.