Backwoods Mentality Takes Over Congress  A growing "redneck
subculture" is strangling the political process.  Sen. Ted Cruz
(Tom Williams/Getty Images)  (The Root) -- At some point, the
federal government will reopen, and the country will go back to
a kick-the-can paradigm that runs the budget on a series of
back-to-back manufactured crises. This we know, since for the
most part most people -- left and right -- accept the governing
construct.  But a larger philosophical problem remains
unresolved. The root issue left dangling like a broken branch on
a dead tree is the size of that construct and how essential it
is. The evidence for that answer will come not so much from the
shutdown itself but from the length of it. Each day it lasts is
a day's opportunity for someone to prove that we can all get
along just fine with government resembling two cups on a
string.   The nation, reasonably frustrated, continues asking
reasonable questions: Who would want a government hanging by a
string? Who could conceive it, and