Civil Society Dying Slowly and Painfully

Listening to CBC radio this morning I heard someone say that the federal government would not openly challenge Rob Ford in a call to dislodge or demand he resign as Mayor of Toronto because his supporters commonly termed "Ford Nation" are the same base as the "Harper Nation." 

Chantal Hébert writes in the Toronto Star "There is a jarring disconnect between the Conservatives’ punitive judicial agenda, their much proclaimed law-and-order principles and their efforts to look away from the public transgressions of the man who runs Canada’s biggest city and the disruptions to Toronto’s municipal life that result from them."  

What kind of people support political representatives who appear to have a contempt for their responsibility to uphold the laws of Canada? 

What qualities do those in the Ford or Harper nation possess?  What is their world view besides repeating the mantra "low taxes" and "the economy"?

Are they addicted to a drug-like notion, that our society is a shopping mall, where you choose the world you want to live in just as you choose commodities from a shelf? That virtues such as hard work, intelligence and self-preservation will keep them safe, no matter how many others suffer?  

Or are these "nations" invented/manufactured by corporate sponsored media?

Institutions and national identities have largely been built on the addictions of the privileged, and sooner or later, we shall see clearly that we have spent and wasted our achievements in an inebriated stupor of self-congratulation. Our governments and institutions uphold our delusions and cannot afford to save us from them. We must re-invent ourselves within a just society if we want our species to survive.