DEPICTION OF SCHOOL SHOOTER AS LIBERAL RATHER THAN SOCIALIST UPSETS PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY'RE THE SAME THING

Online right-wingers are flipping out about this:

Denver Post Stealth Edits Out 'Socialist' from Profile of Arapahoe School Shooter

On Friday, Colorado's Arapahoe High School was put on lockdown while a student armed with a shotgun took over the school in an attempt to confront a teacher who he believed had wronged him. The student, identified as 18-year-old Karl Pierson, took his own life before he could be taken into custody.

In a profile on the shooter in the Denver Post which focused on his "strong political beliefs," several of Pierson's classmates offered their impressions of the shooter. One of the shooter's classmates described him as a "very opinionated socialist." Shortly after that post was published, however, that description was edited out. The current copy simply describes him as "very opinionated." ...

Well, actually the current copy of that paragraph in the Denver Post story describes Pierson as "very opinionated." Much of the rest of the story is very clear about Pierson's actual political beliefs, based on real evidence rather than one fellow student's possibly unreliable description:

In one Facebook post, Pierson attacks the philosophies of economist Adam Smith, who through his invisible-hand theory pushed the notion that the free market was self-regulating. In another post, he describes himself as "Keynesian."

"I was wondering to all the neoclassicals and neoliberals, why isn't the market correcting itself?" he wrote. "If the invisible hand is so strong, shouldn't it be able to overpower regulations?"

Pierson also appears to mock Republicans on another Facebook post, writing "you republicans are so cute" and posting an image that reads: "The Republican Party: Health Care: Let 'em Die, Climate Change: Let 'em Die, Gun Violence: Let 'em Die, Women's Rights: Let 'em Die, More War: Let 'em Die. Is this really the side you want to be on?"

In the story as currently edited, the Post is telling its readers quite clearly that Pierson's politics leaned left. So why is the right throwing a fit? The right doesn't think there's any difference between liberalism and socialism. If you express support for what used to be considered mainstream economic ideas -- Keynesian stimulus in times of recession, for instance -- there's no difference between you and Stalin or Mao, according to, well, every right-winger in America in recent years.

So if The Denver Post is describing Pierson as a Keynesian, isn't it in effect calling him a big fat commie, as far as the right is concerned? Why isn't the right satisfied with that?