A brief statement about Douglas Palmer's letter-writing campaign was published on the back page of the January/February issue. At the time, this was all the space that was available to alert readers to a long-running situation that I felt I could no longer ignore. Except for possible backpage updates, this brief article will be the final space that I will devote to Palmer's personal grudge unless he immediately indicates a sincere intention to debate the issues between us in an internet forum that would give each of us the opportunity to present his case.
In his letter-writing campaign, Palmer is giving a very distorted account of the cause of his grievance. His distortions and misrepresentations are why I have taken the time to reply to the 138 postcards and, as of now, an uncounted number of letters that he sent to me over a four-month period. My replies to just the postcards fill over 160 pages, which I will e-mail to anyone who requests them. It would be impossible for me to give an accurate summation of Palmer's complaints and distortions in this one-page article, but anyone who takes the time to read his postcards and my replies to them will be able to see in Palmer's own words and my replies what the real issues between us are. I'll leave it to readers to decide if they want to request this e-mail document and then take the time to read it. In this article, I will concentrate on matters that Palmer is distorting or deceitfully omitting in the letters he has been sending to TSR readers.
I have challenged Palmer to debate the existence issue. Those who have gotten letters from Palmer may have been duped into thinking that I refuse to discuss with him the origin of existence, but the truth is that I sent to him a challenge seven months ago to debate this subject on the internet. I specified the internet in my challenge, because (1) e-mail is ten times more convenient than ordinary mail and a thousand times faster, and (2) I want an audience larger than just Palmer. A debate requires a huge investment of time, and time is important to me. From my snail-mail correspondence with Palmer, I have found him to be a person who will argue with dictionaries and clear mathematical formulas rather than admit that he is wrong. In view of this personality flaw that he has demonstrated repeatedly and my need to transmit information back and forth as quickly as possible, I think my demand to conduct the debate on the internet is entirely reasonable. If he wants only a one-on-one letter exchange, he will have to find someone else.
Although Palmer has a computer and an e-mail service, he has yet to enter into negotiations to reach an agreement on propositions and guidelines for an internet debate on the origin of existence. He has, in fact, carefully kept his e-mail address a secret under the paranoiac pretense that I want it so that I can send a virus that would destroy his hard drive. (Readers who know from their membership in the Errancy internet list how many times I have had to ask for help in simple computer matters should find it amusing that anyone would think that I have the expertise to send computer viruses.) A favorite refrain that Palmer includes in many of his snail-mail letters is that my reception of his letters is proof that old-fashioned mail works. That is an example of his warped logic. If the U. S. government should decide to revive it, the pony express would no doubt "work" too in getting mail delivered, but only a moron would argue that this method of delivery should be preferred over those that are quicker and more efficient.
Anyone reading this who has e-mail knows that it is vastly superior to snail mail, and my e-mail replies to Palmer's postcards will show that even he admitted this soon after he acquired his computer (not long after he had begun his barrage of snail-mail cards and letters), yet he still refuses to contact me my e-mail. Whatever he may be telling TSR readers in his letters to them, one undeniable fact stands out. I have challenged Palmer to debate his favorite issue (the origin of existence) on the internet, and he refuses to do it.
Other challenges: Early in the snail-mail exchanges that Palmer instigated in August 2000, he made three assertions (all in his typically insulting manner) that were very easy to refute. Space won't allow summarizing those assertions, but refuting them was easy to do with quotations from reputable dictionaries and simple mathematical calculations. I sent the information to Palmer, but he refused to admit that he had erred. In response, I stated my positions in these matters in precisely worded propositions, signed them, and sent them to Palmer by certified mail. Although these signed propositions have since been mailed to him four more times, he has yet to accept the debate challenges and sign the propositions. In his letters to TSR readers, however, he tries to make them believe that I will not debate him because I know I am wrong. Those who receive such letters from him should ask why I am the one issuing challenges and signing propositions if I am afraid to debate him.
The letter to Amy Smith: Palmer seems especially upset over my claim in the November/December 2000 "Mailbag" column (pp. 13-14) that he has yet to reply to my major rebuttal points in the answer that I sent to his letter to Amy Smith in the fall of 1999, but I stand by that claim. Palmer is sending out copies of three letters that he sent to me after I replied to his letter to Smith, but I never said that he didn't write to me after I had replied to his letter. I said that he did not reply to my major rebuttal points, and anyone who reads my rebuttal letter and the short one- and two-page letters that he sent after I replied to his initial letter to Smith will have no difficulty seeing that he did not even attempt to answer many of my counterpoints. Some of his contacts who have seen my nine-page answer to the Smith letter and Palmer's short letters written afterwards have told him that they too agree that he didn't reply to most of my main rebuttal points, yet he persists in trying to convince TSR readers that I have lied.
On the day that I set this article up, I received a letter from Palmer in which he tried to defend at length his positions on the very issues that I have challenged him to debate in an internet forum. I have thoroughly refuted his positions on these issues in the document that he can receive by just e-mailing me the request. Then if he wants to discuss these matters, all he has to do is sign and return to me the propositions that I have submitted to him several times, and then begin e-mail negotiations on guidelines and what internet forum we will use. His latest letter referred to my request for electronic copies of his letters to assist me in expediting this part of my replies to his correspondence. "What replies, Farrell?" he asked. "You don't send me replies, you send me evasions." But my detailed replies are in the document that Palmer can receive by just e-mailing a request. I don't intend to print a 160-page document and mail it to him just to cater to his desire to keep his embarrassment private. Many who read this have seen that document and know that Palmer has been taken to the whipping post. All he has to do to see it himself is join the 21st century and use the convenience and speed of e-mail.
To conclude this article, which I am sure Palmer will read, I
will remind him that I have sent to him several challenges that he
refuses to accept. If he continues to claim that I won't debate him, he
will destroy any vestige of credibility he may have left. Those who
wish to see my replies to him should e-mail the request to
jftill@midwest.net. This document will show that Palmer exhibits signs
of personality disorder and has engaged in flagrant distortions and
misrepresentations in his letter-writing campaign. It is way past time
for him to put up or shut up.
