Ok, so I’m a little behind the rest of the world on this story. Mainly because I only check Twitter on Sunday night or if I get really bored. Last night I couldn’t fall asleep so I was on Twitter and someone that I follow retweeted something about Melissa Bachman and how she was killing animals the writer of the post was trying to save. I had never heard of her before so I did a little research as well as checked her Twitter and looked at two other articles people had posted- both on her behalf and protesting her.
I jumped on the bandwagon and tweeted how I couldn’t believe she killed a lion. Yes, you read that right, she went to Africa to kill a lion. The picture on her Twitter made me sick but there are always two sides to a story; two sides to an opinion. I’m going to try to understand the other side of the story here. I am going to include images of her kills so it may be best to proceed with caution.
Let’s start off with the photo that started the discussion, taken from her Facebook page (you could also find it all over the internet if you’d like, it’s also on her Twitter.)
So let’s begin. Since I disagree with this, I will commence with my opinion followed by me playing devils advocate in a way to justify her action. After all, I was a politics major in college so I’ve written a handful of papers laid out like this.
Part A: Why this is unacceptable.
- Lions are an endangered species. (I’ve just begun to accept deer hunting.)
- She does this for sport- she has killed a lot of large game- with not all being dangerous (see Part B.5).
Part B: Why this is ok.
- The lion was going to die at some point.
- She paid a lot of money to the country to be able to hunt the lion.
- Hunting is a sport.
- The meat was donated to families in Africa.
- Lions kill people.
So apparently when I go through and write everything down reasons why this was acceptable outweigh why she shouldn’t but that still doesn’t mean I agree with the fact that she did it. Lions are gorgeous animals but I have also never been in fear over losing my life to one. I hope like the articles said she did indeed donate the meat to people in Africa.
I think being able to see both sides of the story is the most important part to any opinion you have. Yes, I disagree with what she did but I can also justify and understand why she did it. I try to apply this thinking every time I disagree with someone- it helps to defuse the situation. I don’t think enough people try to see both sides of the story and go on forever believing that everything that they do is absolutely correct and that everyone else is stupid. So I encourage you to try to see both sides of the story before you completely discredit someone’s idea or opinion. The world might just become a little bit better of a place.
xoxo