In his second inaugural address on Jan. 21, 2013 President Barack Obama was remarkably candid. I believe he attempted to co-opt the Declaration of Independence by quoting one its most important sentences: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

And then, to further his own liberal left-wing agenda he adds: "but we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action." He goes on to repeat his oft said laundry list of what I find to be class-warfare and income-leveling rationalizations such as: "the shrinking few do very well and the growing many barely make it."

I believe the message of his speech is that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of the equality of results, not the equality of opportunity; and that is not what the founders intended 237 years ago. The speech was about redistribution, not opportunity. The founders declaration was about freedom not about government power or authority. The "collective" is a socialist idea.

Wayne Farber

Bellingham