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September 30, 2021
Editorial - When the Body Fails to act with integrity

A body, any body, has parts which act to a purpose. But sometimes a body fails, and its parts fail to act in unity with the mind of the spirit.

One example springs to mind with media promotion surrounding the film Ben Hur.

Ben Hur is a 1959 film which won 11 academy awards. Promoters noted a chariot race with Charlton Heston and came up with the phrase "Bigger than Ben Hur." But people watching the film, although enjoying the chariot race, might feel that the subject matter is not about that, but about the eyewitness account of Jesus Christ's life. Time passes and Ben Hur is rarely seen on tv as often as it used to be. The references that people find to it refer to the "Bigger than Ben Hur" promotions, but one has to dig to find the Christ references. Yet that was probably not what writer Lew Wallace intended when he wrote the book .. the intent was to write a fictionalized account of an eyewitness of Christ's life. Time passes, and twenty odd years ago a musical appears of another 19th century writing, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. The play is promoted as a fictionalized account of the life of people during the French Revolution. Digging around, one hears the word 'epic.' However, those who watch the story, or hear the music, hear a life story of a man who becomes convicted in faith to god.

It is not unnatural for dystopia to invade media discourse. Horatio Nelson joined the Whigs despite being a lifelong Tory because he wanted a say (Pocock, Tom (1987). Horatio Nelson. London: The Bodley Head). The US Democrat party is said to stand for minorities, yet it is the party which made as president the famed Indian Killer, supported slavery, bungled WWI and WWII. Made the Korean war last over fifty years. Initiated the Vietnam War. Dropped an atom bomb on a civilian population twice. Betrayed peoples of former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor, Indonesia, Burma, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda and others. Democrat policy brought about the current GFC, opposes orderly migration, promotes the myth of AGW and seems to pride itself on being irresponsible. Yet it seems to run almost every single news service except Fox.

In Australia we have debate regarding the myth of stolen generations, border security, policing, health, monetary policy, AGW and more. In every case, the media broadly support the ALP despite the general population being about 50/50 in support of conservative parties.

The question needs to be asked regarding the integrity of the body.
=== Addendum ===
38 Ways To Win An Argument when you are wrong
by Arthur Schopenhauer
The Art of Controversy (1896)
by Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders
1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.

2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.
Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.”
Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”

3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.
Attack something different than what was asserted.

4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
Mingle your premises here and there in your talk.
Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order.
By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.

5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.
If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage.
Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.

6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.

7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted.
Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent’s admissions.

8 Make your opponent angry.
An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.

9 Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.

10 If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.

11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact.
Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.

12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.
Example: What an impartial person would call “public worship” or a “system of religion” is described by an adherent as “piety” or “godliness” and by an opponent as “bigotry” or “superstition.”
In other words, insert what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.

13 To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical.
Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, “whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents.”
Or , if a thing is said to occur “often” you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say “many.”
It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.

14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
Instead, submit for your opponent’s acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it.
Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition.
Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment.
You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted.
For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.

16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, “Why don’t you hang yourself?”
Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, “Why don’t you leave on the first plane?”

17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent’s idea.

18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.

19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.

20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.

21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him.
For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.

23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit.
When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement.
Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement’s limits and say, “That is what I said, no more.”

24 State a false syllogism.
Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.
It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.

25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent’s proposition.
Example: “All ruminants are horned,” is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.

26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.
Example: Your opponent declares: “so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him.”
You retort, “Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits.”

27 Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
Not only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.

28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs.
If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.

29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion--that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.

30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.
If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.
Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.

31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”
In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.
This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.

32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
Example: You can say, “That is fascism” or “Atheism” or “Superstition.”
In making an objection of this kind you take for granted
1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited;
and
2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.

33 You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.
Example: “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t work in practice.”

34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence.
You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.

35 Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
If you succeed in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately.
Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma.
You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church.
He will abandon the argument.
... see rest at link
https://conservativeweasel.blogspot.com/2009/11/editorial-when-body-fails-to-act-with.html

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November 27, 2022
Jingle Bell Rock

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells swing and jingle bells ring
Snowin' and blowin' up bushels of fun
Now the jingle hop has begun

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time
Dancin' and prancin' in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air

What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go glidin' in a one-horse sleigh

Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jinglin' feet
That's the jingle bell rock

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bell chime in jingle bell time
Dancin' and prancin' in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air

What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go glidin' in a one-horse sleigh

Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jinglin' feet
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle...

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I'm not a preacher, but I am a Christian who has written over 28 books all of which include some reference to my faith. Twelve blog books on world history and current affairs, detailing world events , births and marriages on each day of the year, organised by month. Twelve books on the background to and history of Bible Quotes. One Bible quote per day for a year. An intro to a science fiction series I'm planning, post apocalyptic cyber punk. An autobiography with short story collections.

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Iran’s Peace Charade: Demanding Truce to Keep Killing

As President Trump weighs the latest overtures from Tehran for some form of “peace,” the Islamic Republic’s mullahs are once again playing a familiar game. They wave the olive branch in public while sharpening their daggers in private. The regime’s history over 47 years reveals a consistent pattern: tactical pauses and diplomatic smiles are simply opportunities to regroup, rearm, and continue their campaign of domestic slaughter, international terrorism, and ideological warfare. Any genuine peace must confront this reality head-on rather than wish it away.

The theocratic takeover in 1979 did not emerge from a vacuum. In the years leading up to the overthrow of the Shah, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his network operated covertly from exile in Iraq and later France. Khomeini’s fiery sermons were smuggled into Iran via cassette tapes, building a revolutionary infrastructure among disaffected clerics, bazaar merchants, students, and leftist groups. This underground agitation combined religious fervor with ...

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What peace with Iran entails

Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that established the Islamic Republic, the regime has been accused by the US, Israel, European governments, human rights organizations, and courts of systematic domestic atrocities, state-sponsored terrorism, proxy warfare, and a covert nuclear weapons program. These actions span nearly five decades and form the core legacy any US administration—including one seeking “peace”—must weigh. Iran denies most allegations, framing them as resistance to imperialism or self-defense, but intelligence assessments, UN/IAEA reports, court rulings, and survivor accounts paint a consistent pattern of aggression, repression, and bad-faith diplomacy.

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The Starship V3 Launch
A Triumph of Iteration Over Perfection

The Starship V3 Launch: A Triumph of Iteration Over Perfection

The debut flight of Starship Version 3 on May 22, 2026, was exactly what it needed to be: a solid success, imperfect in places, but brimming with promise. Booster 19 and Ship 39 lit up the South Texas sky from the new Pad 2, demonstrated the leap in capabilities with Raptor 3 engines and upgraded structures, deployed test satellites, survived reentry challenges, and delivered valuable data. The booster's hard landing in the Gulf and a lost engine on the ship were reminders that this is still frontier engineering. Perfection wasn't the goal—progress was.

This is the beauty of SpaceX's approach. Each version is a stepping stone. V3 isn't meant to be the final word; it's a bridge to V4, which Elon Musk has indicated will be significantly larger—potentially 10-20% longer and more capable, with payload capacities pushing toward the extraordinary. V4 is shaping up to be the workhorse: the vehicle that makes orbital refueling routine, enables sustained lunar operations, and lays the groundwork for the first uncrewed Mars missions.

And V4 will eventually yield to V5, and beyond. That's the point. Starship's evolution mirrors the rapid iteration that transformed Falcon 9 from a risky newcomer into the backbone of global launch. We don't yet know the full spectrum of what V3 hardware will enable as it matures—dedicated crew configurations, tanker variants for massive in-orbit refueling, specialized ships for mining asteroids or exploring icy moons, or robust transport hubs. The architecture is flexible by design.

Beyond the Gravity Well

With thousands of Starships in operation, the economics of space flip entirely. What was once prohibitively expensive becomes feasible. Missions long shelved for lack of funding—detailed studies of Titan's methane lakes, probes to Pluto's intriguing surface, or long-duration experiments in deep space—suddenly enter the realm of the practical. A fleet at this scale doesn't just launch payloads; it opens an era of routine interplanetary travel and infrastructure.

Terraforming Mars remains a grand, multi-generational challenge, but the pathway starts here: reliable heavy-lift capability to deliver habitats, ISRU (in-situ resource utilization) equipment, and the industrial base needed to produce fuel, oxygen, and materials on the Red Planet. Early steps could involve Optimus humanoid robots riding Starships to prepare landing sites, assemble structures, and conduct initial operations—reducing risk for future human crews. Plans already point to uncrewed Starship missions to Mars as soon as late 2026 carrying Optimus bots.

The possibilities multiply exponentially once we're truly beyond the gravity well. Self-sustaining outposts. Scientific outposts across the solar system. Even point-to-point transport on Earth. Musk's ventures aren't isolated; the integration of Starship's transport power with Optimus's labor potential creates synergies that accelerate everything.

Critics will point to the anomalies, the timelines, the immense challenges ahead. They're not wrong to be cautious—space is unforgiving. But the V3 flight, like those before it, proves the method works: test boldly, learn fast, improve relentlessly. What was impossible yesterday becomes table stakes tomorrow.

Humanity stands at the threshold of becoming a multi-planetary species. V3's "mixed success" isn't a flaw—it's fuel for the next leap. To infinity and beyond, indeed. The stars aren't waiting; thanks to this iterative revolution, we're finally catching up.

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The Pacific Solution
Unbelievable Official Figures Inform Public Policy

The Pacific Solution: Unbelievable Official Figures Inform Public Policy

The Australian solution to the humanitarian crisis of people smuggling — known as the Pacific Solution — was introduced by John Howard’s government in the early 2000s. The crisis had roots in the Vietnamese migration following the Fall of Saigon and the Whitlam government’s hand-wringing approach.

Official figures often mask the grim reality. Some 1.5 to 2 million Vietnamese fled their homeland by boat. Only around 800,000 arrived at a destination. Bean counters in the media and the UN claim a mortality rate of about 15%. But the obvious reality is that only about 40% survived. The disparity arises because only confirmed deaths are officially counted. Many more boats simply vanished due to unseaworthy vessels, storms, and pirates who preyed on defenceless people. While Australia accepted under 100,000 Vietnamese through refugee camps, only about 2,000 came directly by boat.

The Pacific Solution addressed the less murderous but still dangerous journey from Indonesia to Australia. China-sponsored pirates were not part of the equation this time, but the trip remained perilous. Critics insist the death rate was “only” 2–4%. However, because the total number of departures is unknown, anecdotal reports of missing boats rarely feature in stories that damage Labor. Even 2–4% is far too high.

In Australia, Labor has long enjoyed a reputation for championing migrant rights — yet their policies resulted in drowning people who wanted to come here and exposed them to exploitation by people smugglers charging more than $10,000 per person — a fortune for many who don’t earn that in a lifetime.

Conservatives, by successfully limiting the number of illegal arrivals, have been labelled as wasteful for the resources used to achieve that outcome. A figure of $1 billion has been cited, but this includes routine aviation surveillance and foreign aid spending. One wonders whether spending a billion dollars on Nauru for something trivial like placing condoms in primary school bathrooms would have drawn the same criticism.

What about the far higher human cost of drowning people exploited by people smugglers? Because the arguments against the Pacific Solution failed so badly when it was dismantled, it had to be reimplemented. It was done poorly at first under Gillard, but responsibly under Abbott. While the ALP earned media kudos for “compassion” that in reality exploited desperate people fleeing third-world conditions, it was conservatives who were vilified for prioritising legal migrants and strong borders. Some even complained there were too many legal migrants.

Go back to 2002: Australia faced a crisis as illegal migrants flew to Indonesia and then boarded boats in substantial numbers, many from Iraq. The Tampa affair saw illegal migrants damage their own boat before being rescued by a merchant vessel originally heading to Indonesia. They then overwhelmed the crew and redirected the Tampa toward Australia. The Australian government responded by deploying SAS special forces to redirect the ship. The press claimed this put the illegals at risk. Later, after the Children Overboard affair, the Pacific Solution was born. Australian islands were excised from the migration zone. Asylum seekers were processed offshore and resettled elsewhere. The same press that accepted drowning migrants under Labor protested the offshore processing of illegals. Today, even under an ALP government, the core elements of the Pacific Solution continue.

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Where Have the Heroes Gone?
Ultraman, Jonny Sokko and his flying robot

Where Have the Heroes Gone?

Growing up in the shadow of Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot and Ultraman was a peculiar kind of childhood education. These weren't polished American cartoons with flawless animation and moral sermons delivered like after-school specials. They were raw, colorful, Japanese tokusatsu imports—dubbed into English with that unmistakable cadence that forced you to lean in and follow the often-ridiculous plots. The dubbing was half the fun: earnest voices over rubber-suited actors stomping through miniature cities. You had to concentrate, because the stories moved fast and the logic was gloriously elastic.

The Married with Children gag—"Phone Tokyo"—was pitch-perfect. Al Bundy hearing that grandma was upstairs and immediately assuming kaiju-level catastrophe captured exactly how these shows imprinted on a generation. Godzilla wasn't just a movie; it was the default explanation for any household disturbance. Ultraman and Johnny Sokko were its weekly television companions, beamed in from a place where monsters were real, heroes wore helmets, and the fate of the world rested on a kid with a control device or a blinking Color Timer.

Johnny Sokko spoke to something deeper and darker than it let on. A boy controlling a towering robot against an alien terrorist syndicate, with adults in uniforms who sometimes felt a bit too comfortable around children in peril. There was real tension there: the threat of capture, the casual violence, the sense that good people could die badly. The annoying younger female agent (Mari, I believe) served as the rule-following foil to Johnny's pragmatic impulsiveness. Her constant presence grated in the way only a TV sibling-rival can, yet it was balanced by moments of pure charm—like that whistling motif that somehow made the whole enterprise feel whimsical even amid explosions. The violence never felt cheap or consequence-free. Good guys rarely got hurt in satisfying ways, but when stakes rose, the losses could be permanent and sobering. It prepared young viewers for a world that wasn't always fair.

Then came Ultraman, which opened with the hero dying. Shin Hayata perishes in a crash, only to be reborn through merger with an alien protector. It's a modern retelling of sacrifice and resurrection—echoes of Acts, or any number of mythic hero journeys, wrapped in silver-and-red spandex and miniature destruction. The Science Patrol (SSSP) felt like a real team: Captain Muramatsu's steady leadership, Ide's comic relief, Arashi's bravado, and Fuji. Ah, Fuji Akiko. Smart, compassionate, capable—the kind of character a certain generation of boys fell for without quite understanding why. That blushing "Fuji apple" memory hits home: she represented competence and care in a world of rampaging beasts. Who among us didn't secretly wish the giant hero would notice her too?

What we didn't fully appreciate as kids was that grown adults—talented stuntmen, actors, and effects wizards—were having the time of their lives in those rubber suits. Eiji Tsuburaya's team poured creativity into every wire-assisted leap and pyrotechnic blast. The camp was unintentional but glorious. These shows weren't ironic; they were sincere. They believed in heroism, duty, and the idea that even a child (or a merged salaryman) could stand against impossible odds.

So where have such heroes gone?

Modern blockbusters give us CGI spectacles with quippy dialogue and endless franchise tie-ins, but they rarely capture that same unfiltered wonder. Today's children's entertainment is often either hyper-polished animation or live-action drenched in sarcasm and moral ambiguity. The simple thrill of a giant robot flying in to punch a weekly monster, or an alien hero arriving with three minutes to save the day, feels almost quaint. We've traded earnest rubber-suited battles for polished cynicism. We've traded Fuji’s quiet competence for characters who spend more time deconstructing heroism than embodying it.

Yet the appeal endures. Those dubbed episodes still whistle through memory like Johnny Sokko’s tune—imperfect, earnest, and strangely comforting. They remind us that heroism doesn't need to be grimdark or ironic. Sometimes it just needs a kid with conviction, a giant friend, and the willingness to face the monster anyway.

In an age of streaming algorithms and focus-grouped content, perhaps the real question isn't "Where have the heroes gone?" but "Are we still brave enough to phone Tokyo when the trouble starts?"

The Color Timer is blinking. Let's not waste the three minutes.

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