[xyzzyz]

> But many of the solutions to these problems are already ruled out in the USA. And that's precisely because the US has attempted to carry on slavery by other means. If you look carefully, you can see that the American obsession with punishing the poor or the sick almost always derives from fear of a racialized underclass.

I looked extremely carefully, and observed no such thing. I think you are quite obsessed about race, which is why you are trying to make everything about it. Regular people hate being threatened by aggressive, erratic hobos, no matter what their race is. Last time a crazy vagrant threatened to "fuck me up" for daring to wait for a bus at a bus stop, he happened to be white, and this did not make me feel any more safe or tolerant.

> Thus it's impossible to make a public space welcoming, because you-know-who will benefit. It's impossible to make public health good, because you-know-who will benefit.

Europe makes public space welcoming by aggressively removing and prosecuting vagrants for panhandling, public intoxication, simple drug possession (very much enforced throughout huge swaths of Europe), and disorderly conduct. Europe is much less tolerant about hobos in general, and is on hair-trigger when they're violent. This is also one of the reasons why more regular people use public transit there, because people behaving erratically are promptly physically removed. Ordnung muss sein.