When this actor did movies he wrote produced and directed he made big mistakes. Here are two:

1. He ignored how Ho Chi Minh was a known mass-murderer of landlords (back in the 1950's) when Laughlin made 'Trial of Billy Jack'. No mention of the landlord slaughter from a fictional film about a Vietnam War vet that was supposed to be bringing real facts to the viewers!

2. Laughlin went to far too much trouble to make utterly fictional films. His "Trial" film spoken above and 'Billy Jack goes to Washington' (remake of 'Mr. Smith goes to Washington') were both too heavily and expensively made. Another beef against 'Trial' was that though the school in the film was not a real place but they had the extras go to such length to do all these activities even though the place, again, was all unreal. BJGTW also had way too much detail and art direction expensively drawn for another fictional film. Stock footage would have been cheaper and much more sensible. (The 1971 Billy Jack film also suffered from production overkill somewhat at the end of the film. Too many extras playing cops and students and so on.)

3. Although he clearly ignored Ho Chi Minh's brutal inhuman slaughter of landlords to make his 60s and 70s Billyjack propaganda flicks there is one thing I am not certain of. That snake ceremony he did in Billyjack. Where he is made a brother to the snake if he survives. Many sources insisted there was no such Native American ceremony in real life. However, it seems realistic a ceremony given their often physically close contact with snakes. Was it a real ceremony ever practiced by Native Americans!?!