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Dentistry in America is ludicrously broken, but Europe has had its own way for decades, and diverged in many important ways, while having a far smaller economic incentive.

I don't disagree with that at all. The amount of false dental procedures done in the US for monetary gain is quite high, making it a hassle to find an ethical dentist.

Providing free dental rinses to kids at school seems like it would solve this better

I think that would be a better solution in theory, but the cost of doing that en-masse across the country would be quite a bit higher than putting it in the drinking water (Single bulk purchase of fluoride with only a single person needed to be hired to add it to the water supply Vs. Millions of bottles of fluoride rinse being either being created by the government or contracted out to a company, which is then regularly distributed to schools, likely via truck, requiring hundreds to thousands of new employees to manage and run an operation of that size).

I can't imagine a bill for that program being passed in this political climate. I mean, we can't even get lead out of the water in many communities, and that's far, FAR more dangerous. Not to mention PFAS now being in the water supply. Also, while that solution would help children, what about adults who cannot afford to buy fluoride rinses?

We have pretty solid evidence that shows when a community stops fluoridating their water, the poorest in that community have a pretty steep increase in preventable dental and oral health outcomes.

There is also some tentative evidence that high levels of fluoride could have negative effects to pregnant women, babies, and small developing children (potential lowering of IQ), but it's pretty weak evidence that hasn't been verified, and there is no evidence that it is harmful to adults.

So we have to choose between a 100% known bad outcome for poor people and a potential bad effect for young people from a poorly done study. I don't think it's too crazy of a decision to go with the option that does a significant amount of known good to the most disenfranchised part of the population, personally.

The places that do fluoridate their water do so publicly, is regulated and tested (and can be personally verified at home with a test kit), and adds the least amount possible to achieve the positive outcome, which comes out to a very small dose (many communities have naturally occurring fluoride in their water at higher levels)

If the state can add compounds to water, why not other compounds that reduce aggression?

That part is going a bit too far into conspiratorial thinking, IMHO, coming from someone who used to be a full on religious conspiracy theorist prepper. If we begin to assume that the government is going to start manipulating the water supply secretly, you would then have to assume that any water that you didn't personally purify is suspect, and at that point water fluoridation is the least of your concerns.

The risk to a government doing that is absolutely immense, as the now modified water would be accessible and testable by the entire population that drinks it, and unless there are suddenly new chemicals that are undetectable by known scientific methods, the chances of a government being able to pull that off are below nill, and detection would result in a scandal beyond imagining.