An everyday mockery of democracy in land of the free

This article was published in The Age 1 August 2010

Americans have always exploited the freedoms granted in the constitution.

America's weirdness is well documented. And I don't mean just the plastic-surgery addicts in LA, the outsourcing, pill-popping perfectionists in New York, the toddler pageants, the deep fried Oreos, or even the testicle festivals, the smelly sneaker competitions or the towns that speak their own language and print their own money.

In truth, many parts of the everyday are more peculiar than the freak shows in the US, at least to the Australians who come to visit or live here. At first it's the enormous food portions, entire aisles of drugstores devoted to digestive aids, the blatant advertising of pharmaceuticals, a sugar-drenched gastronomic culture that rebrands fatty meals as ''family guy'' specials and the fact that in Manhattan women use Botox to shrink earring holes and corner stores peel mandarins for you.