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Painting of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco on Lake Texcoco

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What’s wrong is easier seen than what’s right

Bad habits begin early, or at least mine certainly did. But to spare indulgent readers I’ll go to HS days listening to the too-frequent drone. Squirm turning to outburst I’d raise hand and blurt a dumber-than-dumbass question, not because I cared. All I wanted was break boredom’s death-grip. Nothing more Harry? 

Well, cookies and pornography would have been welcome, but unlikely as me turning suddenly useful.
All through later life dumb questions have been a lifesaver. Many, maybe most, of you have been part of some organization or movement where time after time those with very little to say require an astonishing lot of time to say it. 
In such circumstance the dumb question is fresh air against halitosis (bet you haven’t run into that term in a while). 
Pompous asses (I know having been there) react poorly to being asked “Why don’t we build a monument to our achievements?” 
They’ll likewise snarl asked “What does our charter say?” (Particularly useful when a group accepts donations for a specific purpose rather than chair-goon’s projects, pet.) 
My all-time fav is “Why are we paying 10% for someone to tell us we need to raise more money? Can’t we do that for free ourselves?”
You get the idea. If a mission is XYZ putting effort and expense into QRS appears misguided, except for those who believe group efforts should turn to their exalted whims. 
And here’s a kicker. Dumb questions can be difficult to ask amid a welter of distraction. 
Predating HS, one of my Stormtrooper Nuns chucked this at the dumb-Harry head. 
“Empty barrels contain the least but make the most noise.” 
As a grammar (when did we drop grammar for elementary?) school boy I wasn’t organized for much beyond seeking chocolate. That passion had to be become balanced against being an empty barrel (a comparison lost on folks never having seen a barrel let alone used one).
Regardless, dumbness and I soldier on as an experienced team. We like dumb questions not because they do much good. 
Coming out of the blue, a dumb question will skim over many. But once in a while a dummy pause might happen. Thank altruism (my attempt to avoid offense) if it do. 
So, here are some to answer. 
“Why doesn’t Superior have a city wall?” 
“Why don’t Fairlawn and Glensheen have moats and bastions?” 
Ridiculous questions, I know, but why? The fact our cities didn’t need defensive walls say something. 
Oh, there were some fortified cities out east and some “forts” nearby. Grand Portage and Fort William being fortified, but more for security of goods than defense. Walls plus roofed buildings plus watch guards are effective as a group; singly less so.
But going back, why no city wall for big important places such as St. Paul or Chi Town? Why? 
Was it because there was a lot less armed internal conflict? By and large, yes. A community could grow around a mill, mine, farm, etc. without fear of attack. 
Imagine, for fun, a 40-foot high wall encompassing Duluth. Would its presence say something? If you were to build would you want to be in or outside the wall? 
It’s easy to miss the peaceable or tractable side of the U.S. because it’s there, aggregable and not aggressive. We can what-if, but and quibble all over the place, and rightly so. 
But in large measure the U.S. was largely pacific. Places such as Richmond or Vicksburg that fortified during the Civil War got rid of their embankments and ditches soon after.
Arguably the greatest city in all pre-Columbian America was home to the Mexica-Aztec people. Their city was surrounded by a water moat. Why? Their defensive posture might have something to do with their form of neighborliness. 
In peace the Mexica drew children for sacrifice from their neighbors. In war they took captives for the same purpose. The neighbors did much the same. The practice was widespread (including creeping northward, a possibility soundly rejected by some) and included (are you ready) forms of ritual cannibalism. 

Yes, lurid accounts came from the nasty Spaniards, but the acts done at Aztec temples aren’t invented. Practice of large scale human sacrifice with or without consumption is enough to make me glad not having indigenous neighbors like that.
Aside from two Alaskan islands in WWII, some trouble at Dutch Harbor and 9/11 the U.S. has escaped attack. 
I suspect some readers might well think “Escaped attack by being attackers.” That’s one view. I agree. But I think it a view that can be held because U.S. history is generally peaceable. Yell at me all you wish, but world history leans in my favor, starting with the fall of Constantinople. 
What? 
Well, consider. When that C-city eventually became Istanbul it did so having moved the border of Asia to the Bosporus. Asia (we still use these terms to identify certain groups) belonged to the Asians. 
In time the boundary moved to Greece, the Balkans and in 1683 to Vienna. There have been armed Southern border disputes with Mexican or Texacan, etc., but not on a scale coming anywhere near the 1683 attempt to move Asia into Europe.
Indigenous or not, I don’t support Aztec practices. No matter what’s alleged or said, the absence of armies at the northern and southern borders says something – res ipsa loquitor. Plain Latin is, if we recognize it, part of our inheritance, one difficult to appreciate in a forest of competing trees. Western culture is challenged by others and can be, some might cheer, replaced. But the bargain is poor when freedom becomes freedom to be a religious or political slave or to hold the single thought that Inquisition belongs to Christian Spain when the absolute greatest inquisitions were Nazi, Soviet, Maoist and etc. beating the Spanish many, many times over. The culture I hold recognizes the worth of the sympathizing bleeding heart, but not to the Aztec extent. There is a difference, one allowed in the West and outlawed as unjust or hate, usually by the unjust who hate. Dumb questions may not help us here.