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I mean the concept might be foreign to you but you just invoked it. The "Should" is saying you expect me to feel sympathetic. It is prescriptive. You believe I owe sympathy in this situation. You insist that if I don’t sympathize, that reveals a deficiency in me. That means you are treating sympathy as an obligation, just in moral rather than transactional terms. My emotional framework is different than yours, you and I feel sympathy for different things and different causes but you want me to work in your emotional framework, rather than accept my own. It's no different than what my lefty friends do, I reject it here as much as I reject it there.
I'm not implying to owe anyone anything. I'm simply pointing out that sympathy isn't something your owe someone, it's something you feel. So when we talk about whether you feel sympathy for some one we're talking about you and who you are as a person.
When the loud shot rang out across the court yard it scared Charlie's young daughter. She ran to her father for safety as the life drained rapidly from his body. You don't have to change your belief, proscriptions or politics for this reason, in fact I think it would be foolish to. But to not feel some sympathy here implies a blackened heart. I hope for your sake that you have just misunderstood what sympathy is because the alternative is so bleak.
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