The Liar steps into the streets, bloodshot eyes telling their own story, the brim of his ancient fedora pulled down to keep the morning sun at bay. He addresses nobody in particular, but hopes that someone might jot down his words in order to digest them fully at a later date... perhaps. He barely even cares any more.

I know one of the first rules of Omerta is that we never so much as admit the existence of La Cosa Nostra, but fuck it, Omerta's dead anyway. "We are Mafiosi, honour and respect are at the core of our belief system" you say? Screw that. Maybe in Sicily those words still have some meaning, but here in the 'new world', not so much.

You see, we don't NEED to control ourselves any more. City Hall have become so influential that they can do it FOR us. Isn't that great? So when someone crosses the line when flinging around insults as an alternative to actually using their brains and being creative with their condemnation of a CL's actions, or when they take any debate down to the base level of sexual slurs and bilious hatred, it's fine. The City Hall Special Operations Team (CHSOT from here on out, because I'm lazy, and acronyms are cool) has the power and the ability to swoop down and deal with the offender.

So CL's, relax. You don't need to control your members. You don't need to warn them about where the lines of decency are. You don't need to teach them how to operate in the streets in a proper manner which can both express their point of view and keep them alive. If you just leave them to get on with it, CHSOT can deal with them for you.

If they are insulting you, your Godfather, your city, your business practices, don't worry about teaching them a lesson, you barely need to stand up for your honour any more, just let them build up a head of steam, get carried away and go too far, then the government can step in. It often happens that some families are genetically defective, too much Guido in-breeding in this mobsters opinion, and CHSOT are forced into killing them off, after enough of these killings the entire family is often deported.

So don't worry about defending yourselves out here with the plebeian masses, they don't deserve to hear from you anyway. Don't bother educating your crew on how our world operates. Don't worry about the newcomers to our shore who see this behaviour and learn from it. Don't use demotions or fines, or even bullets, as tools to punish transgressors. Don't uphold the basic traditions imported with the first generations arriving here from Sicily. Don't worry if the art of debate and discourse is lost, fuck it, the streets are dead anyway. 

If we as Mafiosi, and especially you as leaders don't uphold some basic standards, it's fine. City Hall can fix it. If we lose a few popular families along the way; if newcomers to our shore see that this is how the world works, and learn from it; if constant City Hall intrusion into our business affairs is the result, well, that's the price we pay.. and it's totally worth it. Right?

The Liar... back to his old self.

It has been coming.

*Mr. Black listens to the Liar rant, thinks about his comments, steps up and speaks to him*

Mr. Liar, I commend your strength to come forward and voice your opinions.  A friend of yours was recently taken from you, and it is understandable as well as respectable that you would speak up over this issue.  I especially respect that you allowed yourself time to settle a bit.  I want to address 2 things here, the first relating to City Hall, the second relating to St. Louis.

As far as City Hall goes, what do you want here?  You want us to start a war with the government?  That would be foolish of us all.  A risk we take every day when we stand on the street corners publicly addressing issues is that some cop, mayor or fed may be listening as well.  While the overall goal is to get our views out to the public, we must take heed to be cautious in what we are saying.  Being disrespectful to others publicly is in itself a violation of Omerta.  As we have seen, even disguising your identity as a reporter, the feds have the tools and manpower to discover who the face is behind the mask.  We may run the cities from the shadows, but they run them in the light.  This is precisely why the code of Omerta was brought to be.

Now let's talk Saint Louis for a moment, as your concerns deserve an answer from one of yours.  There will never be a day that the Godfather or any CL of St. Louis relaxes when it comes to Omerta, the actions of it's soldiers or the verbal or physical actions taken towards our fine city and people.  While I am not a gypsy, I can tell you I cannot see a situation where anyone within ST Louis would seek out the helping hand of the feds to handle a situation before us.  If we take issue with something we will handle it - be it by discreet talks in the back alleys or the disappearance of the offender in question.  Rest assured this city will handle it's own affairs, and we will stand for our beliefs as long as blood courses our veins.

*Mr. Black pulls out a cigar, lights it, gives The Liar a nod and head over to the corner newspaper stand to try to figure out what paper he will read, now that his former favorite is no longer in publication.*

I can see this getting horifically twisted out of context; so I'll add my very brief views on this before it does.

Unquestionably, City Hall are taking more of an interest in our business than before. Hell, I remember some broad who was named after a chicken dish getting raped in the street once, an City Hall didn't mutter a peep!

Due to my connections, it would be extremely imprudent of me to condemn this apparent change in modus operandi but ultimately, as the second man in my city, I feel that too much interference is going to impede how organisations are run in a negative manner.

I don't think it's a case of the Leaders having got lazy, and the government having to step in; more the opposite. City Hall got proactive, people got lazy.

Why did City Hall get proactive? It's blindingly simple. A lot of mob money flows through government channels now (credits) and that's led to the feds having a vested interest in our businesses; and thankfully this has led to much more profitable and engaging enterprises for the most part. However, it has inevitably led to City Hall becoming moe directly involved in our "day-to-days", because there is so much more liability for them now. Is it a necessary evil? I'm not sure.

Yet I fail to see how City Hall should care about some insults between mobsters, that could ineveitably be solved through a few bullets and a few graves to dig?

The_Liar was correct in his original speech on this subject Under Capo Keypunch's public rememberance.

We should be policing ourselves and standing up for our own respect and Honour, not waiting for City Hall to come and sweep the problem away. We have guns for a reason.(Other than shooting mindless robots from Deleware city, Heh - Who knew they had lifelike Robots already?)

I understand the disquiet behind City Hall's increasingly interventionist policies recently.  Indeed, some decisions have me bemused and/or outraged.

I also understand that it has forced some prominent bloodlines to either leave these shores or withdraw themselves to a large or little extent from public utterances - the closure of The New York Post just being the most recent example (and I'm talking about those who feel forced to stay quiet for their own safety or as a result of City Hall's actions as opposed to those who just decide to stay quiet for their own reasons).

City Hall is City Hall though.  As I see it, there are two actions available to us as individuals - our bloodlines can either suck it up or leave these shores and our businesses.  Simple.

If City Hall are to change, it has to be because it either sees that some actions have been an error or because they listen to public opinion on the matter.  At this moment in time, I can't imagine that either is likely.

Excellent news, dear Liar. I will be sure to pass the word up to Deimne, you know, the mafia Godfather based out of 1997 Bullet St. in the Bronx of NYC? Yea, the guy in the suit with the tommy gun hanging out below his trench coat. He's our leader. I say this because obviously omerta is dead, because if not how would I ever survive the night?

Or maybe I lied about that? Maybe the guy in the trench coat at 1997 Bullet St. is really a well respected citizen. Maybe the "tommy gun" hanging below his coat is really just an umbrella. Who knows? I'm sure we'll find someone from city hall over there to make sure to grab up the taxes either way. It's a good day to be city hall!

I mean, everyone loves city hall now, and everyone's just knocking down the doors to tell them how much good work they do. Especially for those members of city hall that like to delve into the dirty sides of this thing of ours from time to time. Those people especially get good vibes.

At the end of the day though I get what you're saying. We need to get off our asses and start taking care of shit for ourselves, right? Like it used to be. Like it can be again.

I have to admit I don't know where I stand on this issue and the same issue is being presented in several speeches so perhaps I'll end up repeating myself if I comment on all of them.

I'm not sure if City Hall is really sticking their noses where they don't belong. If I understand correctly, only sexual comments are being punished. I could still insult the intellect and skills of another person to try to humiliate them, can't I?

I mean, if we pride ourselves with being so well spoken and that's why we defend our rights to come out to the street and insult people, why not curb it to avoid just a single type of insults?

I would agree with several people that killing the same bloodline over and over seems excessive, but some of the comments heard on these same streets may have been too.

In any case, I wonder, is City Hall really reacting to reports and complaints or just trying to preserve a delicate user base that may not exist while upsetting and punishing long time members that we know do exist?

Do keep in mind before I begin that I do realize I am completely out of character for this statement.  I feel that it is the only way to respond the way I need to.

While this is a game about the mafia, you can only uphold certain things within that realm of thinking.  In real life mafia, if someone were to come to the streets and make sexual remarks or any for that matter to someone, then yes they would most likely be killed, never to return to the world again.  In a game though, you kill the character and they come back.. plain and simple there is no real way to stop them from doing it again.  You can kill 100 of his next characters if you feel the need but none the less, it is still the same person behind the monitor.  There are times when admins need to intervene and make sure that said person does not return to this world, banning or suspension, a form of killing the person off for good.  There is no real fear of "death" without it.

While it does take away a fair aspect of this world we are trying to preserve, at times it is necessary.

Advantage, we are not touching on the subject of thugs coming to these streets and speaking under the governments protection for the first 24 hours without the worry of dying. We are talking about Dons/Consigs and Capos. They have accounts to lose if another mobster chose to shoot them, meaning that City hall's intervention is unreasonable.

Walks up and clears his throat for a quick and to the point comment.

I understand where you're coming from The_Liar but just seems to be slightly over exaggerated.  

Yes, I do not agree with everything that has occurred in the recent past however some of the recent issues should have been maybe resolved by our leaders/gfs before requiring our city hall to intervene.  Now whether there was ample time to resolve the issues before our city hall jumped in I'm not sure but in some cases I believe there was.

Simply my opinion.

Hey now! Someone get that man a shot of OOC medicine for his OOCitis. Wouldn't want us to be ushered over to OOC Avenue by the man we know as StreetCleaner.

The way I see it is if someone publically done me wrong, disrespected me or what ever in the most harsh kind of context that City Hall would see fit to remove someone for. I would NEVER be happy with it. I'd feel a little hard done by to be honest. I would want to be that person who removed the idiot from the world, I would want the sense of "God damn that felt good ridding our world of that little twat". Although I don't personally have the abilities City Hall do to rid this place of an entire family. Killing that little idiot would suffice as I would have been the one to do something about it rather than let the legitimates.

I've to agree that City Halls intervention is necessary and needed at times but not when we as the mobsters, the people who should and do actually rule our surroundings have the power and necessity to do it ourselves.

The last thing I would like to comment is this;

The Liar... back to his old self.

I was wondering when it would happen and i'm damned glad it has. Welcome back.

thank you.