"Vegas is everything that's right with America. You can do whatever you want, 24 hours a day. They've effectively legalized everything there"
About this Quote
Carey’s actor-comedian sensibility matters here. He delivers a familiar cultural punch: Vegas as the place where the rules loosen, the masks come off, and pleasure is streamlined into a frictionless transaction. “They’ve effectively legalized everything” is hyperbole with teeth. It implies not that the law vanished, but that enforcement, social judgment, and consequence feel negotiable if you’ve got the money and the will. That’s the subtext: in the right marketplace, morality becomes optional, and regulation becomes a vibe.
The context is Vegas’s long-running role as America’s pressure valve - a city built to contain vice by concentrating it, branding it, and selling it back as entertainment. Carey’s line captures the uneasy bargain: we celebrate freedom most loudly when it’s packaged, surveilled, and monetized. Vegas doesn’t break the American dream; it speed-runs it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Carey, Drew. (2026, January 15). Vegas is everything that's right with America. You can do whatever you want, 24 hours a day. They've effectively legalized everything there. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/vegas-is-everything-thats-right-with-america-you-141125/
Chicago Style
Carey, Drew. "Vegas is everything that's right with America. You can do whatever you want, 24 hours a day. They've effectively legalized everything there." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/vegas-is-everything-thats-right-with-america-you-141125/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Vegas is everything that's right with America. You can do whatever you want, 24 hours a day. They've effectively legalized everything there." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/vegas-is-everything-thats-right-with-america-you-141125/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.



