The main question posed by the film is whether there is a place for unwritten rules and customs, which may technically violate regulations, but may prove necessary for a unique institution like the military to accomplish its mission.

In determining whether the hazing was ordered from higher up, the defense counsel, played by Tom Cruise, cross examines the defendants' commander, a no-nonsense Marine colonel played by Jack Nicholson. When the attorney insists that he deserves the truth, the colonel angrily responds, "You can't handle the truth!"

While the colonel is made out to be the bad guy, many of the distortions, omissions, and outright lies from the managerial class are informed by the same ethos, and they think of themselves as the good guys. This type of "noble lying" arises from the governing elite's belief in its own sophistication compared to the rabble, who would overreact to the truth.

This self-serving justification obscures that officials engaged in narrative control are often more concerned with avoiding embarrassment and accountability than any broader social goal.

Political Correctness Distorts Facts About New Orleans Attack

A few recent events illustrate this phenomenon quite clearly. A man with an ISIS flag on his truck committed a terrorist attack in New Orleans. He ran over pedestrians and then shot it out with police, having earlier announced his intentions on social media. At least 14 people were murdered in the attack.

A third-grade kid could figure out it was Islamic terrorism. Yet agent nose-ring from the FBI and the clownish local police chief would not describe the attack as terrorism in their initial press conference. The media interviewed some of his family but kept calling him American-born and emphasizing his U.S. Army service, lest we think there is anything unusual about an American named Shamsud-Din Jabbar.

Based on photographs, the killer's appearance sometimes looked African-American and at other times Middle Eastern. When combined with the nature of the attack, this led to a lot of speculation he was Somali or Pakistani.

In multiple stories from the mainstream news, it was impossible to find out if his family had foreign origins or if they had ties to a terror-supporting country. It looked as if the media was trying to hide something, which we have seen many times before.

A local Louisiana paper was the only one to answer this completely natural question. It turns out his parents were natural-born Americans of Louisiana Creole descent, whose father converted to Islam. The father changed his name, presumably to signal commitment to his new faith, and all of his children had similarly foreign-sounding names.

Why the avoidance of facts by the press? Most people know that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists and that not all of those who become terrorists are foreign-born, as was the case with converts John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla.