Rewriting Religious Freedom

In school they taught us that this country was founded on religious freedom.  You know, that group of misfits and malcontents who wouldn't toe the line and obey the governmental regulations?  What were they called?

Pilgrims?

They had the outrageous belief that this one book, the Bible, ought to come first - even above the law and the official Church of England mandates.  So, they risked everything for the right to serve their God in the way they best saw fit.  And when their heirs created something called The Constitution of the United States, they made sure it had language in there to protect the private practice of religion - even if it wasn't the particular religion that they supported.

Let's take a little history refresher here.  Remember that guy, Thomas Jefferson?  The one who was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?  In 1802 (after the original Constitution was ratified), Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in which he stated, "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that the act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

That phrase in the middle might tweak your memory a bit.  It's from the First Amendment to the Constitution.   The whole point is that government isn't allowed to tell you what you can and can't believe, or how you should worship.  The actual text is Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Now, I'm not the last person to admit that religion has been used as an excuse for a wide litany of social wrongs.  Everything from the Crusades to Segregation to Homophobia has been pegged on religion.  That's  undeniable.  And it's wrong.  I'm a Christian, and the Bible teaches us that God is love.  It also teaches that sin is sin, and there's not a great deal of difference between a little bit and a whole big bunch of sin.  Either will cause spiritual death (separation from God).

As Christians, our job is supposed to be to hate the sin, but love the sinner.  The Bible teaches that we've all sinned, and have fallen short of Glory of God.  And the wages of sin are death.  So, acting in a hateful or divisive manner is not helpful, it's just more sin.  We're all the same, until we accept Jesus' sacrificial gift of salvation.

Dead.

However, there are some things in my Bible that I just haven't been able to erase.  They seem to re-appear any time someone prints a new copy.  Things like the ten commandments and specific warnings against witchcraft, necrophilia, homosexuality, lying, a haughty spirit, pride, and countless other sins.  Sorry, but it's true.  I didn't write it.

But now, our government has decided that some of these things are okay.  And we're not allowed to speak out against them.  That's "hate speech" and it can be a felony.  I could actually go to prison for quoting from my Bible.

The answer, I suppose, is to create a new Modern American Socialist version of the Bible.  We can simply edit out anything that's objectionable.  Heck, if they can take Christ out of Christmas, why can't we just edit Him out of the Bible?  It would be a whole lot easier to deal with religion without all that guilt and sin talk, wouldn't it?  And just think how much smaller and easier the MASB would be to carry around.  You could slip it into a shirt pocket, maybe even reduce it down to a pamphlet.

But what would the message be?  If you stop and think about it, we've already been given the Message by those two sages of the silver screen, Bill and Ted.

BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER!

Makes a great bumper sticker, don't you think?

But does it really take the place of that dusty old tome full of hate speech called The Bible?

Think about it.  What would YOU chop out of the King James or New American Standard, if you were on the MASB editorial board?

And would your life really be the better for it?  How about your eternity?

A Prize Most Deserving

I'm not a social activist.  You're not going to see me marching, holding a sign, conducting a sit-in (remember those?).  I bitch and complain, but I'm a rabble-rouser, not so much a get-out-and-do-er.

But, I want to tell you about someone who is, and has been for most of his 93-year lifetime.  He is, without any doubt or reservation, a true American treasure.

His name is Pete Seeger.  You may have seen him at the last Presidential Inauguration, singing a song written by his old friend and mentor, Woody Guthrie.  A little ditty we all learned in grade school - This Land is Your Land (the original title was God Blessed America for Me, but that's another story).

He was involved in union organizing, war protesting, peace marching, and countless other causes great and small.  From international peace gatherings, to cleaning up the Hudson River, to a thousand benefit concerts to aid this or that cause.  He's written songs that you've probably heard all your life - If I Had A Hammer, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine and Turn, Turn, Turn.  He has an endless repertoire of songs at the ready.  I heard him sit through a jam session for several hours, and he knew EVERY song someone wanted to play.  I've also seen  him enrapture a crowd of several thousand, just one man and a banjo, alone on the stage.

Astonishing as his musical talents may be, they're not the reason that I consider him a true hero.

Over half a century ago, when he was called in front of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (how's that for an oxymoron?), he didn't claim the Fifth Amendment.  And, he didn't sell out his friends and colleagues.  The way that HUAC worked, you either had to admit to being a communist, or you had to name everyone you ever knew who "might be" a communist.  To call it a witch hunt would be far too polite.

When Pete Seeger was called up, he claimed the First Amendment (freedom of speech) and said that Congress didn't even have the right to ask him these questions.  Here's the transcript of his testimony.
Learn about HUAC and read the transcript.  It's IMPORTANT and it is NOT taught in our schools.

What did he get in return?  He was blacklisted, and his musical group, The Weavers was dropped by Decca Records, despite having several chart-topping hits.  He couldn't find a job anywhere.  Nobody would touch him, especially after he was charged with contempt of Congress.

So what did he do?  He rolled up his sleeves, packed up his banjo, and hit the road again - singing about peace and understanding and social justice.  He just about single-handedly started the folk music revival of the late 50's and 60's.  Literally hundreds of musical groups and vocal artists were born from that deep well of social relevance and activism.  From the Kingston Trio to Joan Baez to Peter, Paul and Mary - all owe a deep and lasting gratitude to this one man's courage and legacy.

I could go on for hours and days, but there is one true thing that I can say from the heart.  As I've grown older, had kids, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren I have become wiser, more jaded, less optimistic.  Even so, there are only two heroes left in my eyes - two people that I aspire to be more like.

Jesus Christ...

...and Pete Seeger

Now - finally - Pete is being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.  I can think of no other living person more deserving of this honor.  If you agree, please cast your vote by visiting THIS LINK.  And pass it on.

Don't sit around and do nothing.  Heaven knows I do enough of that for both of us.  Make a difference.

Merry _ _ _ _ _ mas !

First and foremost, Merry Christmas, Good Will to Men.  With God's grace, and in spite of our incompetent self-destructive government, we've managed to survive another year.

That's a good thing.

But, each year I get a little bit more exasperated with the whole commercialization of Christmas.  When the bows and decorations start appearing before Halloween, the train has definitely run off the rails.  I find it very hard to be joyous and gracious to my fellow man when the retailers are after my last penny, and the yuletide shoppers will go to war with you just to get a parking space closer to the front door.

And, in case you haven't noticed, the word Christmas is slowly but surely being eliminated from all the holiday advertising.  Happy Holidays!  Yuletide Cheer!  But, let's not mention the Son of the Living God, whose birthday we used to celebrate at this time of year.  Been great knowin' Ya, but we've moved on...

How different would your Christmas be if all traces of Christ were removed from the holidays?  Would you miss the nativity scenes?  What if all the old carols disappeared, replaced only by Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman?  Would you miss going to church?  Would your family traditions change in any way at all?

Be honest.  Do you actually celebrate the birth of Christ?  Or is this season only about an embarrassing deluge of gifts, a crushing credit card bill, too much food, and a couple days off of work?

Might be worth thinking about a little bit.  Just sayin'.

A Tale of Two Movies

Earlier this year, I first became aware of the 72 Hour Film Fest, now in its seventh year, and the associated 72 Script Fest (in its first year) - a time-limited, assigned topic screenwriting competition.

The finalists from the 72 Script Fest would be given to the 72 Hour Film Fest participants, who would have 3 days to make short films based on those screenplays.  Not to mention cash prizes for the first and second-place screenwriting contest winners.

When the time came, all the screenwriters (90+) were given three random criteria, which had to be used in crafting their short screenplay. Mine were:

1) Set in the future
2) One man (or woman) against the world
3) The last match (a litteral match, or a contest)

I took the criteria literally, and created a post-apoctolyptic story featuring a lone woman survivor.  I tried to fill it with a solid story, character, suspense, surprise and emotion.

It won first place - Best Screenwriting - and was one of 29 finalists to be given to the 72 Film Fest participants.

There were 34 participant teams.  Two teams, Chiet Productions and Missing Link Productions, both chose The Flame for their project. I volunteered to help both teams.  Both ignored me.  One was sort of polite.  The other went completely "radio silent'.

From what I understand, this is par for the course, unless you're the producer/director or have the reputation of a Terry Rossio or M. Night Shyamalan. As a screenwriter, once you hand off your "baby", you have no control of its destiny. It is quite possible that you will turn over your sensitive, carefully crafted emotional character-driven work of art - and someone will turn it into a zombie movie.

I'm not kidding.  A...zombie...movie. With 'the walking dead' limping around and chewing on your characters.  ZOMBIES!!!

One famous screenwriter defined success as selling a screenplay, and having the check clear the bank.  Anything else is just luck, unless you're J.J. Abrams or George Lucas.

To be fair, the zombie movie took the Best Cinematography award at the 72 Film Fest.  Even WITH the zombies...(sigh).

But, the other film stayed very true to the script and storyline.  It took the Best Acting award.

And some audience members even cried a little bit near the end.  That was a huge ego boost.  There's nothing quite like having the words YOU wrote come floating down from a 30-foot tall screen and touching someone.

Here are the two movies, for your viewing pleasure:

• The Flame, by Chiet Productions
• The Rising, adapted from The Flame by Missing Link Productions

And here's a link to the original screenplay.

Enjoy. And, remember - when you sell your screenplay, my best advice is to simply cash your check, then go write something else.  And keep telling yourself, "It's only a screenplay.  It's only a screenplay.  It's only..."

Dream Maker or Dream Seller?

There's an ancient saying - when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  Until that time, the student will be faced with an undending supply of advice from people who don't know spit and offers from self-appointed gurus who will gladly reveal the innermost "secrets" to success for a mere...

Well, you know how the pitch goes.  You've heard it before.  Heck, if you had even a nodding interest in real estate, you'd remember all the late night advertisements by various real estate gurus, offering to teach you everything you needed to know for three easy payments of $49.95.

Yeah, right.  Wanna know a secret?  Those guys aren't dream makers, they're dream sellers.  They will gladly sell you a dream, but they aren't going to make that dream come true.  In fact, their goal is to give you just enough to get you hooked, then sell you more stuff.

Hmm...that's the way drug dealers work, too, isn't it?

There is actually a business built on the selling of information.  It's sometimes called infomarketing, or even infotainment.  The market and information don't really matter.  All that's needed is a group of prospective customers who desperately want to be successful.  For a while, it was real estate investing.  Then it was flipping houses.  Then, it moved to Internet marketing.  And on to making a fortune on eBay.  And, don't forget screenwriting.

You mean I can write my life story in only 100 pages, and then sell it for a million bucks or more?  Shoot - SIGN ME UP!!!

I'm going to tell you how the game works.  You have to use your own best judgement from there.

Informarketing is built on the concept of the upsell.  Hook the customer, stroke their ego, stimulate their interest, then sell them something more expensive.

Stage 1 - Give 'em a taste for free.  Give a free seminar at local hotel, or have them sign up to receive a free report over the Internet.  Provide just enough info to get their emotions stirred up, and then set the hook for Stage 2.  Perhaps you sell a low-cost introductory product, with just enough profit to cover your marketing efforts.

Stage 2 - Sell 'em the "secrets".  This is a course that usually costs $10-20 to make, and resells for anywhere from $79.95 to $295.00.  Of course, the customer can divide that into three or four easy payments.  The real "secret" is that the guru reveals enough information (which by the way could probably be found for free using Google and Wikipedia) that the customer is firmly hooked.  But not quite enough that they become self-sufficient.

Stage 3 - Sell 'em the "strategies".  Convice the customer that they're almost there, and just need some additional knowledge specific to a particular area of interest.  For instance, in real estate, you could sell courses in foreclosures, short sales, flipping, retail properties, rental management, subdivisions, yadda, yadda, yadda.  The customers who are still with the program at this point will likely buy multiple "strategy" products.  More profit.

Stage 4 - Sell 'em support.  If they haven't been able to achieve success with everything they've bought, perhaps they just need the personal touch.  And the guru is happy to provide an 800-number support line for a reasonable monthly fee.  Of course you can't talk to the guru, but you CAN talk to one of his personally trained support staff.

Stage 5 - Sell 'em the "inner circle".  Now they get to meet the guru, perhaps at a week-long retreat in Mexico or Hawaii.  At least, he'll be there to give an opening talk and maybe attend one of the dinners.  It's a dream vacation, and absolutely cheap for the access and super-secret info that you'll get, for only $7,995.00.

If you think I'm full of it, slow down and reflect.  Have you ever known someone who got a mail-order course and was successful.  No?  Really?

Wonder why...

Here's reality.  The folks who are really doing it don't have the TIME to teach others how to do it.  It's not usually that they want to protect some secret market niche.  It's just that it takes time and energy to help someone learn. A lot of time and energy.  Time that they're NOT able to work making money.

Every once and a while, an expert will try to teach others.  Invariably, they quit because it just takes too much time and it's too expensive.  I know a real estate investor who used to hold 3-day training classes on his particular area of expertise.  He quit because he was losing money.  He barely broke even giving the classes, but he wasn't running his business while he was preparing for and giving those classes.

So, the dream MAKERS are out there, but they're busy doing the real work.  The dream SELLERS are also out there, lusting for your very last dollar.  How can you "breach the wall" then, and make it into your desired market?

It's not easy.  The real answer is that nobody's going to do it for you, and there are no secrets.  In fact, if anyone says they're going to sell you the secrets, they're a damned liar.  Period.  If you want to get over that wall, you're going to have to build your own ladder.

You can learn a lot from the Internet - mostly for free.  You can check out books from your local library for free (remember books?).   You can get almost anything in the world through your library on inter-library loan, again for free.  You can get together with other wannabes and share knowledge.

In other words, DO THE WORK.  Eventually, you'll start to figure out that you don't know very much at all.  That's the signal that you've actually started learning.  Soon after, you'll start answering questions and helping other newbies (or n00bs).

And some day, after working at it long enough, you'll bump into someone out of the clear blue who will kick your emerging career up to the next level.

When that happens, congratulations.  You're now the student and your teacher has arrived.

Robin Hood was an Idiot...

...and so are our congressional representatives.

Half of them say that we should get the rich to "pay their fair share".  The other half say that this will cost jobs and that the rich guys can't pay off the national debt, even if you take ALL their money.  Does any of  this sound familiar?  The economists call it 'redisribution of wealth'.

Robin Hood called it robbing from the rich to give to the poor.  Let's get real.  It doesn't work.  Never has, never will.

Why?  Because rich guys make the rules.  They're not going to do anything that really matters in the long run, because it would hurt THEM.  How many of those 535 n'er-do-wells down in DC are millionaires?  I'm guessing better than 90% of 'em.  Do you think they're going to volunteer to clean up the budget mess with their own dollars?

Yeah.  I got a bridge I'd like to sell you...

Here's the skinny.

Argument: The rich pay too little in taxes.

• Fact - about 1/2 of the people in the US don't pay any federal income tax because they don't make enough money.  Who pays the bulk of the taxes collected?  Rich guys.
• Fact - the earned income tax rates go up as you make more money.  Rich guys ALREADY pay more (a lot more) taxes, as a percentage of their income, than poor folks do.
• Fact - most of the money rich guys make comes from businesses and investments.  Raising their income tax rate doesn't get you DIDDLY in additional revenues.  You'll have to change the tax rules for business and passive investments, too.  And who writes those rules?  Rich white guys, in Congress, on both sides of the isle.  Think that'll happen?  Nah. Me neither.

If you're a small business, you're stupid if you're not incorporated - for various reasons.  But, let's say that you're a small businessman who still runs the whole thing out of your back pocket.  And you made a million dollars last year (good business, huh?).  Realize that EVERY business expense gets subtracted from that million dollars, and what's left is your net adjusted income.  And THAT is what you pay taxes on.  It's the money you get to keep - your profit.  Out of that million dollars, you probably expensed about $900,000.  That leaves a net adjusted income of $100,000.  And THAT is what you'll pay taxes on.  So, this ballyhooed tax bump on $250k and up individuals just passes you by.  It doesn't hurt you in the least.

Now, if you're mister megamillionaire, you put your money into long-term investments.  And they produce income.  Under the current law, that income is called a LONG-TERM CAPITAL GAIN.  And, it's only taxed at 15%.  Wanna know how a certain presidential candidate only paid 14% in taxes last year?  Easy - he started at 15% from all his long-term capital gains (from his investments) and then he gave a bunch away to charities, lowering the taxable income even further.

Therefore, the only way to soak the rich for more tax money is to either increase corporate tax rates (and we're already the highest in the world) or to raise the long-term capital gain tax rates.  And that ain't gonna happen for two reasons.  First, it would hit Congress in their own wallets.  Second, it would make a bunch of rich guys yank their money out of the US economy and send it someplace more "friendly".  Like Monaco.

Well, kiddies, just how are we supposed to deal with this danged $20 Billion deficit?

1. Spend less
2. Tax more

We're kinda screwed on #1, because three-fourths of our government money goes into entitlements.  And if you cut those entitlements, you lose votes.  That's what Congress calls the "third rail" (a reference to the high-voltage rail that makes subways run, and kills anything that touches it).  So, Congress will piss and moan about incremental changes to the remaining fourth of the budget, which doesn't buy us squat in the long run.

If we can't soak the rich guys or corporations for #2, where will the money come from?  You and me, baby.  You can grab your wallet, lock it in a safe, bury the safe, and burn your house down on top of it.  Congress will still find a way to make sure that WE pay the deficit that THEY created.

That means the ONLY - and I do mean ONLY - way to increase tax revenues is to get more people making more money.  Since only the top half of income earners even pay any tax - THOSE are the jobs we need to create.  THOSE are the guys that will have to pay off the deficit.

In other words, Congress needs to quit pissing on each other and figure out how to create good paying jobs.

That's our only salvation.

We're doomed, aren't we?

Where in the world is Shiloh?

Short answer - it isn't.  Originally, in ages past, it was a name for a group of real-estate related businesses.  The email/twitter/blog name of shilohpubs is from the first of those companies - Shiloh Publications.  Time, the banks, and our wonderful government have managed to kill off all of those businesses, until only one remains - Shiloh Productions.

That name came about because I did sound production and training for a while.  It survived almost by accident, until eventually I decided to become a screenwriter.  Happy coincidence.

Now, Shiloh only exists as a magical place in my imagination.  And that's not a place that many would find comfortable, I'm sure. Thus, the birth of this blog.

I just need to rant sometimes, and this is the designated place.  If you decide to brave the foul winds that must by necessity blow from this quarter, then you might find some interesting or at least thought-provoking tidbits.  I'm likely to ramble, ponder, pontificate, and pound the table about many things, including:

• Politics
• Religion
• Real Estate
• Screenwriting
• Anything else that fascinates me, irks me, or otherwise becomes a target of my obsessions

So, if this sounds interesting, stay tuned.  Otherwise, don't let the door hit ya on the way out!

Bye, now.  See you soon.