You’re right there are a lot of negative things about the U.S. And even if it became a biking/public transit utopia, it would still suck to be homeless. We’d still need to address wealth inequality.

I’m addressing the last line of the OP image, why do we hold up cars as a symbol of freedom? It’s because they do provide personal empowerment. They provide specific benefits.

It’s possible for a situation to have terrible outcomes without it being a conspiracy. Some people, like Robert Moses, did design certain places to be accessible by car but not by bus. But I’d argue the main reason the car is dominant in the U.S. is because individuals who saw benefit from their own car use pushed and bought into that system.

Imagine we’re playing chess, we have to understand the pieces on the board, what their abilities are. I get it’s a fun thought experiment to list all the ways a bike is great. I’m just saying it’s useful to understand what people see in a car if we want to create an alternative.