Article XXVIII -- Constitution of the United States

Amendment IV The right of the people to drive hideous and gigantic vehicles to their favorite shopping malls shall not be infringed, and no criticisms shall be issued implying that doing so is a criminal waste of the world's resources or an illegal basis of undeclared war, and particularly that the lives of young American men and women are being tragically wasted in the name of consumer greed and utter selfishness.

 In Memoriam

  "The United States has been dependent on Middle East oil since the early nineteen-seventies. In 1956, M. King Hubbert, a geologist working for Shell Oil in Houston, predicted that American oil production would peak sometime around 1970 and thereafter drop off. Many people in the oil world dismissed Hubbert's gloomy forecast, which was based on the declining rate of discovery of new reserves, but it turned out to be correct, and American oil companies, such as Exxon and Chevron, were forced to step up imports.

In 1973, the Nixon administration abandoned long-standing restrictions on the purchase of overseas oil. A few months later . . . the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo on shipments to the United States. Oil prices tripled, and the American economy entered a deep recession.

OPEC's intervention came as a great shock to Americans, who tend to regard cheap gasoline as a birthright. . . . In 1979, after the overthrow of the Shah disrupted Iranian oil production, OPEC raised the price of crude once again, resulting in longer lines at American gas stations. . . .

Nixon had set self-sufficiency in energy as a national goal, but most Americans weren't ready to commit to conservation or renewable energy. During the nineteen-eighties, however, American families finally switched to more fuel-efficient cars. . . . In the nineteen-nineties, many members of OPEC breached the cartel's production quotas, and the result was an oil glut. In 1998, the oil price dropped below ten dollars a barrel, bringing gasoline prices down to pre-1973 levels. Many Americans returned to their gas-guzzlers, in the guise of sport-utility vehicles."

-- John Cassidy, "Letter from Iraq." The New Yorker, July 21 2003, pp. 70-71.