Set forth below is the text of an e-mail that J.D. Roth, the owner of the Get Rich Slowly blog, sent me on May 21, 2009. The background is that I was in the middle of an exciting discussion at J.D.’s blog with Bill Schultheis, the author of The New Coffeehouse Portfolio, when my comments stopped appearing. I made numerous tries to get the comments to appear and contacted J.D. by e-mail to ask for his help; those e-mails were ignored. I wrote at my blog that J.D. had banned me from commenting at his site. J.D. wrote to tell me that this was not so and I posted a correction. J.D. wrote to argue strongly that the correction was not sufficient and that I should remove the earlier comments altogether. I said that I did not feel comfortable removing words that had already been posted but that I would be happy to run a Guest Blog Entry in which J.D. could make the case for why he felt that I had handled the matter poorly.

Hi, Rob.

Thanks for the response.

I do not have time or interest in writing a guest post at your site. What I want is for you to remove the defamatory statements about me and Get Rich Slowly from your site. I’m not trying to be unreasonable, I’m not trying to pick a fight, I’m not trying to persecute you. I’m asking you, as a reasonable adult, to remove the false statements you have made about my actions. They have the potential to damage my reputation. And I’m asking you to do this now, in a nice way, instead of taking other steps. What you wrote crosses a line that ought not be crossed.

You are free to post my previous e-mail PROVIDED YOU POST THE ENTIRE THING AND NOT JUST EXCERPTS. I’m not sure that I have a “take” on anything other than the fact that you claim to have posted comments that have not appeared in my WordPress account to approve, and that you then took this as license for defamation.

Rob, I mentioned in a previous discussion that it seems to me that you might want to see somebody regarding mental health. I was not joking, and I was not trying to be mean. When I read what you write — “A gang of thugs now works virtually full-time posting abusively at discussion boards and blogs to insure that the millions of middle-class workers who need to learn about these issues before they lose more of their retirement money do not find out about them”, etc. — I hear the same sort of things my mother tells me. She struggles with mental health issues. Let me assure you that it is *HIGHLY* unlikely that there is a concerted full-time effort out there to thwart your attempts to share your ideas. This is paranoia, and it needs to be addressed.

Again, I’m not trying to make fun of you and I’m not trying to belittle your concerns. I’m merely suggesting that you might want to seek some help.

So, to summarize my past few messages:

1. I posted a test comment on the thread with problems. Please do the same.

2. Please remove the defamatory comments from this post: http://arichlife.passionsaving.com/2009/05/19/holy-toledo-this-is-great-stuff-the-new-coffeehouse-investor-author-bill-schultheis/

3. Please consider consulting a mental health professional.

4. I have neither time nor interest in contributing a guest post to A Rich Life.

Again, your message is interesting, and I’m glad you’re sharing it. However, it is not *my* message. You’re welcome to share it at Get Rich Slowly, but I’m not willing to pick it up as a crusade.

Please let me know when you’ve posted a test comment and when you’ve removed the defamatory info from your site.

–j.d.