Posted By: Cristina's Way
Why Would Anyone Want to Join the Mafia? - 10/02/05 04:26 PM
I'm intrigued by the attraction this way of life holds for those who are in it. For anyone who cherishes life, love, and family, it seems to me that membership in organized crime is a terribly risky and nerve-racking way to live -- a way in which all one holds dear is placed in a state of constant danger.
If you're the boss, a rival might attempt to kill you at any time. You can't even open the drapes and look at the moon without giving consideration to whether your enemy is watching and waiting to open fire on you.
Allow a rival to become more powerful, and your own underlings will double-cross you and set you up for your own death if the rival offers them enough incentive. You're never really sure of whom to trust; you can get pretty paranoid under those circumstances. (I know I would be if I always had to look over my shoulder.)
If you are not the boss but an underling yourself, you're in danger if you attract the slightest suspicion of disloyalty; and for that you can be killed in any number of horrible ways, such as garroting, drowning (with "cement shoes"), car bombing, etc.
And why, oh why, do underlings even think of betraying their mob bosses by making a deal with the enemy or by accepting a better offer from a rival? Can the extra money, the extra territory, or the extra power possibly be worth the danger of being exposed as a traitor? It seems that the traitors always get caught eventually ... and then pay with their lives as punishment. The truly scary part is that they might live in complacency for years, but payback is meted out one day out of the blue when they least expect it.
Furthermore, don't mafia members have any Fear of God in them or any misgivings about how they will have to answer to their maker for their actions? Even if they don't have religious beliefs, don't they have any sense of karma that what they've visiting upon others will be someday visited upon them?
Now all my assumptions are from the movies and fiction, so I may be wrong about how many betrayals and discoveries of betrayals occur in real life. But I still ask the queston: What attraction could there be in the mafia life?
If you're the boss, a rival might attempt to kill you at any time. You can't even open the drapes and look at the moon without giving consideration to whether your enemy is watching and waiting to open fire on you.
Allow a rival to become more powerful, and your own underlings will double-cross you and set you up for your own death if the rival offers them enough incentive. You're never really sure of whom to trust; you can get pretty paranoid under those circumstances. (I know I would be if I always had to look over my shoulder.)
If you are not the boss but an underling yourself, you're in danger if you attract the slightest suspicion of disloyalty; and for that you can be killed in any number of horrible ways, such as garroting, drowning (with "cement shoes"), car bombing, etc.
And why, oh why, do underlings even think of betraying their mob bosses by making a deal with the enemy or by accepting a better offer from a rival? Can the extra money, the extra territory, or the extra power possibly be worth the danger of being exposed as a traitor? It seems that the traitors always get caught eventually ... and then pay with their lives as punishment. The truly scary part is that they might live in complacency for years, but payback is meted out one day out of the blue when they least expect it.
Furthermore, don't mafia members have any Fear of God in them or any misgivings about how they will have to answer to their maker for their actions? Even if they don't have religious beliefs, don't they have any sense of karma that what they've visiting upon others will be someday visited upon them?
Now all my assumptions are from the movies and fiction, so I may be wrong about how many betrayals and discoveries of betrayals occur in real life. But I still ask the queston: What attraction could there be in the mafia life?