In which our narrator's knee-jerk libertarianism causes him to tear an ACL

I suffer from both white coat hypertension and blue blazer hypertension, the latter of which has no backgrounder on Wikipedia. I've checked.

Maybe it was dad's military upbringing, or maybe it was my coming of age in the mid to late 70s. Or hell, maybe it's something in my proteins. But whatever the cause, I have a bit of a problem with authority. And one of the effects that authority figures have on me is making me feel like I'm lying, even when I'm not.

Short, true anecdote: I took my only polygraph test when applying for a job with a hotel chain. If you've already rolled your eyes, that's precisely my point. Not the NSA, not the DOD. I took a pre-employment polygraph screen to work at a hotel chain.

The process of strapping me in and revving it up had already made me very nervous, so, inevitably, blue blazer hypertension seized me before the test administrator even spoke. I failed the very first question. "Is your name Fred ____?"

This bears repeating. The whole process rattled me so terribly that I felt I was lying when I stated my name. And I didn't get the job.

Which is why this story spooks me a bit, in spite of my libertarian bona fides. Money quote:

No Lie MRI asserts that its technology, "represents the first and only direct measure of truth verification and lie detection in human history."

I strongly believe in voluntary association. There is only one alternative to that, and it is involuntary association. There is no distance at all between state property and affirmative action, between state property and wrongful termination claims. In each case, the policy is one of involuntary association.

But I also believe in contract law. Extra-contractual language, such as pre-employment drug screens and pre-shift stretching on job sites erode the relevance of the contract. (For the latter example, the general contractor requires not only their own employees to stretch (no problem here) but requires the employees of their subcontractors to stretch as well. Silly, arrogant, and coercive.)

An apparently accurate polygraph machine could easily reinvigorate the private sector's interest in our private lives. Yes, I would rather work -- and it is my right to associate -- with only those men and women who think like me, act like me, share values and beliefs with me, listen to the same music as me, watch the same TV shows as me, consume only the same intoxicants as I do, and are married and have two kids like I do. But if a candidate otherwise presents well, has the CV I am looking for, and brings impeccable references, I will have to take on faith that he won't use MDMA on the job, prefers hiking to yoga, and doesn't like jazz.