“I don’t know whether to warn you that because George Dubya Bush is president the whole damn country is about to be turned into Texas or if I should try to stand up for us and convince the rest of the country we’re not all that insane.” This introduction from Molly Ivins’s essay, “Is Texas America”, shows how she holds a stereotypical view of Texas as being ignorant and insane. People’s personal identities help contribute to this. For the most part left wingers view Texas as the most conservative state in America. Through the collective number of people who hold conservative values as part of their personal identity Texas is very conservative. People will be judged and attacked for holding certain beliefs which make up their personal identity…show more content… Usually these words carry with them people’s political affiliation, race, gender, religious beliefs, region or area of the country they come from, and events from their life that shaped them as a person. If I was to describe myself to someone I would start by saying many things that are in fact part of my personal identity. Obviously, at first sight parts of my personal identity would be identified such as being a white male. From here I would describe myself as a Christian from Tennessee who attends ETSU and as a conservative in the political spectrum of thinking. Then from here comes the most important part; events from my life. Of course gender and race were given to me by genetics, but my political and religious beliefs and outlook on life come from experiences I have encountered for the most…show more content… Through life I drifted from a libertarian view and a more conservative view on the outlook of politics. I have now settled into a leaning-right view of how I wish America to be. This has been caused by how I see through political issues and whom I normally side with and whom I have more in common concerning my political views. Such as how I am pro-life, belief in how government has overstepped regulation boundaries, and other political issues. One of the more important issues I encounter currently that shapes my personal identity is government regulation. It infuriates me that when I go up into southwest Virginia to see family, and I see coal country being hurt by legislation passed by the left in Washington. As an avid hiker I do care about the environment. Yes the pollution that coal produces is destructive, but what America should have done was finance clean coal technology. Clean coal technologically has progressed and with recent developments such as coal capture and sequestration could be a reliable cheap source of energy with little to no emissions. Coal capture and sequestration is a recent technology that captures carbon emissions and liquefies the gas for storage. Yet instead America has imposed regulations that are essentially killing the coal industry and costing many Appalachian communities that are financed from coal to suffer harsh times. This is a personal experience of seeing first hand and knowing about what is going on