Once again: Rationalism is founded on the doctrine of original intent.

One thing that fascinates me aesthetically is when people come up with interesting and plausible readings of a text that are consistent with everything the text says, but radically at odds with the author's intentions.

It still surprises me how supposedly liberal professors of philosophy - titling themselves "philosophers" as professors of chemistry are called "chemists"- begin with the logic of Nino Scalia.

"I'm shocked... Shocked!" to find ambiguity in that sentence.

So fucking stupid. That's why they spend their time reading crap literature: the literature of ideas, of content as opposed to form. To rationalists art is illustration.

"But I love you!"
"Just because you say it doesn't make it true."
"Yes it does!"

Bureaucracy is a formal system; the system is foundational to what it produces.
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Update (from the past). I'll repeat myself (again).
Brad DeLong:

THERE ARE NO ATTRACTIVE MODERN CONSERVATIVES BECAUSE CONSERVATISM SIMPLY IS NOT ATTRACTIVE. DEAL WITH IT!!

And again:

[Y]ou have to either live in the countryside or live in the city and be really rich to say that rubber tomatoes suck. For those humans who live in the city and are not really rich, rubber tomatoes provide a welcome and tasty and affordable simulacrum of the tomato-eating experience.

Brad Delong thinks he's not a conservative, but he's redefined liberalism to include conservative arguments.
Rationalists rationalize.