What sets the mafia apart from say the CEO of Enron who lost millions of dollars for everyone involved?

They are both liars, cheats, extortionists, etc...

Yet we tend to go easy on mafia hoods. Henry Hill is practically a celebrity, yet we all want to kill Kenneth Lay.

I agree with the poster who said that we will always be drawn to these colorful characters; it's a kind of voyeurism. We are looking in on a life that we could never be a part of, well unless we wanted to live with the risk of being killed or going to jail over petty things that would get us killed.

Which leads me to my next point - people never "deserve" to die unless they are serial killers or terrorists. Did Vito deserve to die because he rejected the Sollozzo offer? As mafia standard go - he did. But I disagree.

And we also never saw the civillian casualties. The kid standing on the street who was shot during a shootout, and we also never really saw the Mafia widow. Not to mention the victims of gambling, drugs, loansharking, etc...

The mafia has many victims on many levels, therefore, it is illegal. And even though the government did want it shut down because they weren't getting any money - it's rightfully so! The government is the government and shouldn't be cheated out of what is deserved them, taxes, commission and other things that mafia cheats them out of.

I love mafia movies. They are filled with some of the greatest themes in film: honor, loyalty, courage and betrayal. But that is where it ends for me. Mafia is crime. And crime should be stopped.