You're mixing apples with oranges.
Of course one would rather imagine pain than to actually experience pain. Doesn't mean one can't imagine emotional pain, drawing on real life similarities, without experiencing the pain for the moment.
For example a person who has dropped a cinder block on their toes has a great deal of empathy for those who have a cinder block landing on their toe in the present...no?
From experiences we all draw on in life, it's morally lazy not to be able to identify with the pain that a Saddam victim must feel and the joy a Saddam victim must feel when Saddam is finally executed.
After reading the wikipedia article on the execution, there are only four countries that did not have a negative reaction to the execution. China, Israel, Poland, and Australia. The rest, including the Vatican, condemn the barbaric practice of capital punishment. Its amazing how pussified Europe is.
And you acuse me of mixing apples with oranges? Trying to somehow equate the physical pain of a minor injury in terms of being able to relate to the psychological pain of having a family member brutally murdered?
As my job has at times required, I once had the unfortunate experience of providing grief support for a large number of teenagers who endured the pain of losing one of their friends who was raped and murdered (she was only 13). I and several other psychologists provided that support during a viewing of the girl, where the parents of these children dropped their children off and left them there for hours. My pain was in watching and trying to help these children work through their grief. This is not the same as the pain they experienced at the loss of this friend. Yes, I had sympathy for them. No, I did not have the ability to empathize with their pain. These are distictly different feelings. As I've never had the experience of having a loved one murdered, I cannot experience empathy as that requires I be in the same place that they are.