History is Destiny: Unless Wisdom and Caring Intercedes

By H. John Lyke

This book is a must-read because the political landscape has appreciably changed from when, after the war, I served in Korea as a Detachment Commander for the 121st Hospital where your word was your bond. Regardless who you were, it didn’t matter, for you were completely trustworthy in most instances, what you said is what you got. That most certainly is not true today.

The political parties are equally dishonest when they believe they are fully earning their room and board in serving We the People when you figure they spend most of the time quarreling over who’s politically right and wrong rather than the political issues of the day.

Tragically, today’s political situation is where compromise is no longer the pressing issue of the day, but rather, just plain survival has taken front and center, not only in politics, but life in general.

Global warming and artificial intelligence will kill us unless we can keep them under control. If AI is eventually used for destructive purposes, just like the atomic bomb was used to end WWII – this time the force can be made stronger, therefore more deadly, all of our futures are in jeopardy.

We can mollify or destroy the ill effects of global warming or artificial intelligence respectively, if all countries that have AI and those nations that are members of the United Nations’ Climate Control Convention agree on a course of action that they’re able to pledge themselves to support preserving life. Even that may be questionable because what they say and what they do may mean two different things. Therefore, what’s being said represents a real conundrum that makes all the political and domestic struggles that I mentioned in the book secondary in importance even if extremism prevents compromises to occur in our country today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9781663256959

H. John Lyke

Dr. Lyke earned his master's degree in clinical psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia and his doctorate at Michigan State University. He is a board-certified psychologist and professor emeritus at Metropolitan State College of Denver, and was a clinical psychologist for the State of Colorado for many years. He has written the political psychology books The Impotent Giant and What Would Our Founding Fathers Say: How Our Leaders Have Lost Their Way, and co-authored a psychology self-help book, Walking on Air without Stumbling. He lives in Denver and has three grown children and four grandchildren. To find out more, please visit lykeablebooks4u. com, where you can read more about him as well as follow his current and archived blog posts. More important to John, however, is that you join the discussion at lykeablebooks.wordpress.com, where the blog originates and you can post your comments.

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To we the people who have been prejudiced or discriminated against because of race, color, or creed, which has caused our system of government to be broken from stem to stern.

I’d like to single out an associate of mine, Foster Cline, a psychiatrist, who many years ago taught me much about child psychology when I worked with him at a residential center for emotionally disturbed children. Some of the concepts he taught me I’ve lovingly put in my book.

To thine own self be true.

—William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

This is difficult to do under any circumstance; however, it’s particularly tricky to be honest with yourself and others when the subject is politics.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Evaluating the Mess Using a Psychological Grid

Chapter 1     A Few Critical Psychological Concepts

Chapter 2     Understanding the Three Harsh Masters of Life

Part II. The Mess We Are In

Chapter 3     Our Broken Country

Chapter 4     The Ignored Threat of Climate Change

Chapter 5     Systemic Racism and Discrimination Against the Black Community

Chapter 6     Extremism

Chapter 7     The Evils of the Republican Party

Chapter 8     The Perils of Mask Wearing

Chapter 9     Abuses of the First Amendment

Chapter 10   Values We Are Missing Today

Part III. How We Got into This Mess

Chapter 11   The Mistakes of Our Founding Fathers

Chapter 12   The Perils of Patriarchy

Chapter 13   The Embarrassing Racism of Our Past

Chapter 14   The Mistake of Being People Pleasers

Chapter 15   How the Tragedy of Our Two-Party System Came to Be

Chapter 16   Democrats versus Republicans: Never the Twain Shall Meet

Chapter 17   The Tragedy of Trump

Chapter 18   The Dangers of Close-Mindedness

Chapter 19   The Absence of Tabular Rasa (Clear Thinking)

Part IV. Simple Truths to Clean Up the Mess

Chapter 20   We Need the Simple Truths of Life

Chapter 21   The Importance of Integrity and Intentions

Chapter 22   Empathy = Compassion = Honesty = Integrity …

Chapter 23   Love (Compassion) and Respect Should Replace Power and Control

Chapter 24   Everyone Needs an Advocate

Chapter 25   Social Intelligence: A New King of Smarts Necessary to Mend Our Government

Chapter 26   Good Self-Concepts Are Critical in Making Good Decisions

Chapter 27   Love Is the Essence of Life

Chapter 28   Being Other-Centered (Loving)

Chapter 29   What Can We Learn from Abraham Lincoln?

Chapter 30   An Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living

Part V. Providing Order through Needed Reforms

Chapter 31   We Need a Social Democracy

Chapter 32   We Need a New Monetary System

Chapter 33   We Need Fair and Equal Treatment in the Black Community

Chapter 34   Other Needed Reforms

Chapter 35   Sammy Davis Jr.—An Example of Love

Part VI. The Derivation of the Simple Truths and Why the Reforms Are Not Working

Chapter 36   Your Greatest Insights Are Your Own Projections

Chapter 37   Your Greatest Insights Are Your Own Projections (continued)

Chapter 38   The Reason Global Warming and Artificial Intelligence Needs Understanding

Chapter 39   To Thine Own Self Be True

Epilogue

Preface

Our country is a mess. Everywhere we turn, we find discrimination and racial prejudice of all types against Native Americans, Hispanics, LGBTQ victims, and those with disabilities. Female bigotry also continues to plague this country and is only one of many principal reasons why our system of government is broken.

There seem to be a trillion reasons why I wanted to write yet another political book, but obviously, that is a gross exaggeration; however, considering the gravity that our country is in, it seems not extremely far from the truth.

As you’ll discover by reading my book, the current problems in our nation have made me so very angry, and you should be as well. Compared to years past, we have institutionalized not only racism but also death and destruction.

Hunger for Money, Power, and Greed

An example is what’s happened and continues to happen in Ukraine. Or what’s happening in this country at this very moment in time. Many who are devout conservative Republican, like some of your former president Donald J. Trump’s base is, and most certainly many other Republicans who may never have voted for Trump and even see him also as an anathema, view making money as more important than life itself.

With respect to Ukraine, why don’t the wealthy here in good old USA step up to the plate and provide the necessary monies required to fund President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with sufficient weaponry immediately? That being done so that your and my compatriots, which include men, women, and children, don’t have to continue to die in a piecemeal fashion day after day, after day.

While we Americans view the horrors in Ukraine, I often wonder if a similar situation confronted the United States, how many fellow Americans would fight to their death to protect our union?

I would wager a guess that there would be significantly fewer Americans who would be willing to lose their lives for the good of the country, unlike the Ukrainian countrymen and women. In place of that number, our fellow Americans, including our politicians, would act as turncoats and traitors, unwilling to give up their lives for a cause greater than themselves.

As the horrors of war became more intensified and bizarre, and the loss of lives and property became more self-evident as the war progressed, I and the rest of the world began to understand why a seeming madman butcher, Putin, is so hungry for power and control, which represents his effort to build the Russian Empire like it was once conceived.

Or consider another problem in our country, like semiautomatic weapons that continue to exist, impacted in part when the federal assault weapons ban enacted in 1994 expired in 2004. This did little to regulate the actual firearms other than limit importation from specific countries. Nevertheless, during the ban, the number of deaths caused by firearms was significantly reduced. You, like me, should ask, why did the attempts to renew this ban fail? It’s because the killing of others and racism have become institutionalized or taken for granted, which is the first step in losing our democracy and republic, all done for the likes of money and power.

Our list could go on, where people in government take advantage of our freedoms by stretching the letter of the law, destroying what the law really states rather than what they would like it to represent.

Another current problem is the right-wing extremists in the Republican Party. They stand as a minority, but they are still shaping national issues and laws that do not reflect the majority views. This current travesty of minority rule is an outrageous state of affairs.

Another good example of malfeasance is not putting term limits on Supreme Court justices, or even politicians who are serving as president or vice president, or Congress of yours and my country. By not limiting their participation in government, they sustain their biased positions longer than should be the case. That’s unfair. Changing the guard changes what’s being predicted and therefore may truly represent the changing of the times and our culture’s thinking more accurately.

The Loss of Integrity

Those reasons form the basis for why I wrote this final political book. It is because I want to help you, and in turn me, to understand how and why we have lost our country’s most cherished entity, our integrity, which makes us proud to be Americans and provides us with the wherewithal to make each and everyone’s dreams come true.

How to prevent all these problems and more from systemically continuing is what History Is Destiny—Unless Wisdom and Caring Intercede is all about.

For a good share of my life, I was completely intolerant of people who thought differently from me, whether it was politics or common values like right or wrong, good or bad. I’m able to temper my intolerance a bit so I can more readily tolerate, without accepting, moral views different from mine. However, I found that not to be true if the person who offends me is Trump himself or one of his supporters, especially in the context of the January 6, 2021, coup and its related hearings. I vehemently find Trumpsters particularly abhorrent and as a result continue to vigorously oppose their political viewpoints, because they lack the principled or moral fiber so necessary for honest dialogue to prevail. Instead, they hold views that are so antithetical to anyone with a moral compass and corresponding temperament—views that are deep-seated in their soul, all of which make up their character and predisposition.

It is also for that reason that I have authored this book, to review our political history and in that way better understand the errors of the politicians’ ways, including those of our founding fathers, who set the stage for all the missteps that have occurred along the way.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my dear friend and co-conspirator, Liz Clark, who helped me understand, unconsciously at first that we were both contributing to the soul of our nation when she came aboard as a co-collaborator. I knew what I needed—someone I could share my views with who embraced life with the same ideals I possessed. And because she was smart, she could offer sage advice that provoked an inner sense of excitement and enthusiasm about the book’s message. And since it offers a systemic, not a political, solution to fix our broken system of government, our country’s integrity can remain intact.

Words of appreciation also go out to Rita, my fiancée of many years who believed in me when I found it hard to believe in myself. The same tribute is ascribed to Dr. Bob and his office secretary, Melonie, who also believed in me through thick and thin, particularly when I found it hard to believe in what I was able to give to my country, in the form of love and care, as discussed in my Simple Truths of Life, as well as God-given wisdom that is so critical.

Introduction

So you want to know what it takes to be a free nation? Read on!

There’s only one reason I ask that. It’s because the question speaks to the crux of what we need to do to fix our broken system of government, which is to rid ourselves of prejudice, (discrimination) and bigotry. To do so, we’re using a unique way of doing that; I’m analyzing the health of our nation from my background as a clinical psychologist.

One of my mentors, the late Jules Holzberg, once said psychologists are supposed to be experts in normal human behavior. The psychological principles I have used in my vocation are the same ones we as a nation need to use to heal our broken system of government. The first way to solve our country’s problems is through introspection—or routinely reflecting on the political or personal goals we have in life.

A Psychologist’s Heart on Display

I decided in order to address the numerous problems our nation faces today, I’m going to speak my thoughts as they come to me, realizing that a good share of the experiences I have had will have a factual basis, but other times, what I say is my opinion and may or may not be factually based. But one thing you can be sure of is a good share of what I utter has come from my psychologist’s heart along with my head; consequently, I’m speaking from the emotional side of my personality, because that is the part that provides why and how decisions are made, thoughts that are not just for me but for all Americans.

In the preface, I went into the practical details of what I’m deeply concerned about in our country and why I wrote this book. What I intend to do here is explain the format through which I analyze our broken system of government and what we need to do to fix it. Then readers will have a better idea of what to expect. I briefly explore the current political situation, where the right-wing extremists in the Republican Party, even though they stand as a minority, but because of their money and power, still shape national issues and laws that do not reflect the majority views. This is an outrageous state of affairs that should be briefly probed. If the majority of a people’s decision is made, then the majority should maintain the power until the minority becomes the majority; then the control and influence should change accordingly.

A Personal Caveat

It is not unusual for a son to struggle with his relationship with his father, and I’m not exempt. I have been struggling with my sense of self for six or so years. That’s when the verbal trauma by my father began. I recently had my eighty-eighth birthday. Somewhere during my eighty-eighth year of life, I finally felt complete as a human being and ready to take care of myself and others in a way I’d always wanted to do, ever since I could remember.

Why did this healing process go on for so long? I no doubt had an intellectual or conscious understanding of what part of my problem was, but it took years for me to uncover the total and true emotional meanings behind those experiences with my dad and what they meant to me. Until I was able to wed the emotional and intellectual understanding of why I did what I did, I couldn’t own the experiences. To the degree that this did not happen, I interpreted any experience to be valued in the same light as any other knowledge that was assessed, as nothing more than ordinary.

That is why so much political rhetoric is like any other expression; it turns out to be just so much chatter or meaningless discourse.

In my situation, like in politics, the lack of emotionally appreciating what I experienced will remain a nonevent to you as well, so long as you are unable to see the emotional side of the cause-and-effect relationship that I experienced; until that happens, where you can understand it with every fiber of your body and soul, it will remain a nonevent.

Do you see the psychological grid by which I view my life and our world?

I finally feel like my life is complete, in that not only do I take complete ownership of what I say and do, but I can speak with conviction that my thoughts and actions are my own, and I take full responsibility for them, which only a sense of empowerment could enable me to do.

It is for that reason I can feel proud to be an American and to be given the opportunity and privilege to serve myself, others, and my country as an entity in itself. In that way, my dreams can become a reality in a way that was not true earlier in my life. It is out of that maturing process in my life and my pride as an American that I organized my thoughts into this book, which I now offer to you.

A Mental Microscope

In summary, all of what I just discussed will be thoroughly examined by putting such political specimens under a mental microscope and using a clinical psychologist’s perspective in analyzing the psychological and emotional health of our nation. This is all being done in an effort to examine why history is destiny unless wisdom and caring intercede.

What sort of psychological terms will we explore in this book? Have you ever heard of ego defense mechanisms or the superego? If not, never fear. All those terms will be explained before we use them to explore the mental health of our country.

It is true. Our country has faltered along the way, and in doing so, it severely damaged its core values. Look at the ridiculous January 6, 2021, coup, for example. A large part of our electorate is unhinged. The damages have become so severe that our nation’s heart is now on life support. Throughout my book, in an effort to find a solution to our problems, we will look at our country’s history from the birth of our nation up to now and see, either by direct implication or implied as such, how not only did our founding fathers make grievous mistakes along the way, but also, in parallel fashion, our politicians have made grave errors of political judgment.

Our history is indeed our destiny—unless we stop the process in its tracks.

Dear reader, the very core of this book is how discrimination and prejudices of all types provide the necessary scapegoating or displacement (a defense mechanism of deflecting responsibility by projecting blame on someone else) by those in power to maintain their authoritative control through patriarchy and in that way serve themselves rather than the people they were elected to serve.

Mental Illness

As a clinical psychologist, by using today’s reality, I am in a unique position to explain psychologically why things happened as they did and what we need to do to rectify the situation so that all Americans can make their dreams come true.

Our country is mentally ill and has been that way since it was born, 430 plus years ago. Like our nation, to make the title of my book History Is Destiny—Unless Wisdom and Caring Intercede become a reality, where wisdom and caring intervene in such a way to make the whole, the politicians who symbolize the founding fathers must become collectively greater than their individual parts.

The values a family has are the same our country should possess. They are the Simple Truths of Life, which I introduce in this book. They are having integrity, being empathetic (compassionate), and being other-centered (or of service to them). That should achieve mental health for our nation. The only difference between our family and our country is the size of the population that needs to be served.

As an interesting sidenote, I struggled for the longest time thinking about what success is. I decided it was not how much money one makes but being of service to others. Choosing that maxim levels the playing field so that people of all economic levels can participate equally in what accomplishments might be characterized as being.

I also plan to share a smorgasbord of political issues with you, similar to what I touched upon earlier in the preface. This will be done in an effort to explain why and what is needed to systemically fix our broken system of government so that it works not just for the privileged and wealthy of this country, where fairness, equality, and justice for all Americans prevail.

How to Get the Most from This Book

In this book, I also want to particularly highlight the minimum things necessary for you to adequately respond to and understand why, systemically, our system of government is broken and what needs to be done to fix it. These also factor into the reasons I wrote this book.

I also want to give you, dear reader, an inside look at an example of what makes me tick in writing any narrative or any manuscript I submit for publication.

So let’s begin.

Embrace Goodness of Heart

First, to get the most from this book, you need to embrace Black House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn’s belief that goodness of the heart needs to be present in our thinking if racial prejudice and all types of discrimination and bigoted thinking are going to be eliminated. In its place, we need to understand that love is the essence of life.

I hold the goodness of the heart as the main springboard from which all other valued entities of love spring forth, and it should be treated as such whenever possible.

Employ Love in Your Heart

We also need to understand and eliminate what my maternal grandfather said in the early 1930s, by proving him wrong. He stated, The two worst evils of mankind (humankind) are greed and intolerance. They can only be eliminated by employing the love in your heart for all human and nonhuman kind. I sum up what is needed using my Simple Truths of Life. These provide the foundations of this book.

Encourage Advocacy

The final concept included in this consummate list is the need for advocates—that is, people who support and even champion one another’s common causes or beliefs and in that way make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Advocacy as a concept must be thoroughly understood and appreciated. What I try to promote is a caring and honest relationship between us both, which is what makes our life together that much more enriched and meaningful.

By doing that, you capture one of the most critical things we should all be doing with one another, regardless of whether we’re talking about politics or life in general, which is to become each other’s advocates. That should be our motto from the time we’re born until the time we die. We will discuss advocacy more thoroughly in an upcoming chapter.

With the topic of advocacy being discussed, a theoretical frame of reference is adopted. According to Thomas Jefferson, The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory. Obviously, the corollary to that statement is to think clearly through what’s stated and whether or not the Simple Truths of Life can be incorporated in the theory proposed. For if that is done, love and honesty will always be embodied in that theoretical construct.

Time to Wake Up

When you start thinking about how our founding fathers and colonists fought to protect our freedoms during the Revolutionary War and why WWII was fought (so that we didn’t live under a dictatorship that Hitler would have provided), you begin to realize that the situation could easily happen here, today, in 2023.

It will happen sooner than you and I think if we don’t wake up and own what’s happening around us. The days when you could afford to be passive participants in the field of politics are over.

Not only must we become actively involved day by day in our politics, but you must put your heart and soul into that commitment. For if we don’t, at worst, we, our loved ones, and our families will perish from this earth, or at best, we will live under a dictatorship quite similar to Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

If we don’t wake up, we could also lose our precious Constitution, which guides daily affairs in our country. In upcoming chapters, I will discuss this issue and many others in more detail.

PART I

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Evaluating the Mess Using

a Psychological Grid

CHAPTER 1

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A Few Critical

Psychological Concepts

Before we dive deep in this book, it’s important for us to pause and define some important terms, remembering that I’m a clinical psychologist. These terms will provide the framework or grid we use to evaluate what has gone wrong in our country, how we reached this place, and how to fix it.

These are all important theoretical constructs that need to be explained for the reader to understand this book. Also, in order to understand why things happen as they do, you must understand their origin. It’s important to understand that, according to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, we only use a third of our minds in our thought processes at any point in time. Therefore, even when you think you understand something thoroughly, you may be completely wrong in your assumption of what really happened.

Ego

The ego is one’s sense of self or the executive part of one’s personality. It’s a theoretical concept, therefore used in the abstract in place of how the sense of self is used in a concrete and everyday way of relating.

Ego Ideal

This is the inner image of oneself as one wants to become. Once again, like the ego, it’s used in a more theoretical way of relating.

The Conscious Mind

The conscious mind involves thoughts that someone is aware of at any given moment. As I’m aware I’m talking to you immediately, there’s no delay in the discharge of psychic energy between a given stimulation and a response.

The Preconscious Mind

The preconscious mind or hypothetical physical state mind involves thoughts you aren’t actively thinking of but you can call to mind (brought into consciousness) easily, given the right spark or association. Though some, there’s still much less delay in discharge of psychic energy between a given stimulation and response.

The Unconscious Mind

The unconscious mind includes thoughts and feelings that exist outside of one’s conscious awareness. These are repressed to the point that you can’t remember them without extreme effort and/or focused help. Therefore, at the moment, the delay in discharge of psychic energy is permanent without extreme effort and /or focused help.

Scapegoating

Its theoretical name is displacement. This is a defense mechanism of deflecting responsibility by projecting blame on someone else. The person who is targeted is completely innocent of