If you read my columns online — or last week’s at the very least — you’ve likely seen the backlash “If I did it: academics and Adderall” received. Within a day, there were already 10 comments, most of them describing the piece as “horrific,” “fucked up,” or my personal favorite, “like a drug pushing 17-year-old with a complete disregard for health professionals.”

This is why we can’t have nice things.

As I’ve written before, the Internet truly is a wonderful place. We can talk with our friends, share new ideas and in general, do a lot more than I could ever describe in a 600-word column. At its best, the Internet is an extension of our freedom of speech, which for the most part, people handle pretty well.

But like most good things in life, somebody will always find a way to fuck it up. For every petitioner and protester out there fighting for a good cause, there are also the bigots utilizing the legality of the freedom of speech but not the spirit of it.

Take the Westboro Baptist Church. Technically speaking, their practices are legal. Protesting outside the funerals of men and women who fought for this country is protected by the Constitution. So is attributing the soldier’s deaths to what the church calls a “too lenient” stance on homosexuality by the United States.

Everything they do is so wrong; yet there’s nothing we can really do to stop them. That’s what (most) people who comment on the Internet are like, to a lesser extent.

Comment sections are supposed to foster conversation, which I can get behind. I don’t care if you agree with me or disagree with me.

My editor Nassim put it perfectly: “While it is perfectly within the right for others to disagree with Servantes, it is also perfectly within the right for Servantes to express his opinion …”

As long as you can keep it civil, I more than welcome the discussion. I’d actually be bored if people agreed with me all the time.

But most people weren’t civil about it; they were assholes. And while they are allowed to be assholes — like the Westboro Baptist Church — it’s still really uncool to be an asshole.

An intelligent response would look something like this: “I disagree with your views on Adderall. While I can see its appeal, the drug also carries a myriad of side effects with negative consequences for your brain. Blah, blah blah …”

Unfortunately, it didn’t play out like that at all. The disagreements were there, but so were insults and questioning of my ability to write. I swear, the thinking of these people must have been, “Not only is he wrong for disagreeing with me, but he’s stupid too.”

The Internet makes this kind of behavior too easy. Hidden behind the anonymity of the Internet, commenters will hurl insults at anyone who sees the world from a different point of view. It’s not enough for them to make their own views known; they want anyone who doesn’t share them to feel bad about themselves.

Face-to-face, it wouldn’t unfold the same way. If I gave a speech about the same subject in a class, nobody would have the balls to stand up and tell me it’s literally one of the most fucked up things they’ve ever heard. Instead, they’d act like a decent human being and give their own argument, minus the jabs.

I’m sure writing this isn’t going to change any of these peoples’ minds. And neither would throwing the same vitriol back at them. Instead, I — and anyone else who’s ever felt the wrath of commenters — should live comfortably knowing any comment will appropriately appear below the piece they’re commenting on.

As Kanye West recently rapped on “Way Too Cold,” “Whoever think they words affect me is too stupid / and if you could do it better than me, then you do it.”