I watched President Obama’s inauguration speech on television with my parents. We agreed that it was a disappointing experience. Rhetorically, it was the best since his campaign speech in Columbia at Williams-Brice Stadium, especially at the beginning; it was even Reaganesque in places.

But if he really believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, then that should include the unborn.

If he really means that the nation cannot survive half free and half slave, then surely it is wrong for half of the people to support the other half or, worse, for a politically defined class of people — “the rich” — to bear the burden of repaying the debts of the entire society.

And he is wrong to say that everyone is entitled to equal love or that a child born into the bleakest poverty has an equal chance in life. It is the job of that child’s parents to ensure he or she is not born into bleak poverty, because it really does matter if you are born into an orderly home with two parents, books, good moral and work habits and other advantages.

Furthermore, there are all kinds of poverty. Government is not very good at relieving material poverty, and it is even worse at relieving poverty of knowledge or of the spirit.

Obama said government cannot do it all, but then he contradicted himself by assigning responsibilities to government that are best borne by individuals, families and other private entities.

He said new times call for new ways of doing things, but then he excepted Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security as programs that do not have to change.

It was a clever speech, but not an honest one.

Christina Jeffrey

Spartanburg