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Friends and Families of Psychiatric Survivors of Wisconsin
Bill of Attainder

Constitution of the United States:  Article I, Section 9; Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.  
 
Wisconsin Constitution:  Article I, Section 12:  No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed, and no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate.

What is a bill of attainder? 
 
Bills of Attainder, or bills of pains and penalties, are prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, and by every state constitution.
 
A bill of attainder (from "taint", as the bill of attainder taints the blood, because it prevents his children from inheriting) provides for civil death, as a citizen's rights no longer exist. He cannot borrow. He cannot sue.
 
It is based solely on one's membership in a certain class.
 
Of course pro-force folks will point out that Chapter 51 and other laws like it are not based solely on membership in a class, but on a two-pronged test:  ---- "mentally ill and dangerous".
 
But, what about "mentally okay" (if there is such a thing) and dangerous? That's not good enough, even though more people would fit into that class. People who have been incarcerated for a crime have a 50 to 80 percent recidivism rate. Doesn't that make them more dangerous than folks with psych problems?
 
Yet, it's clear when reading the statutes that the "dangerousness" actually is the same as the mental illness, so it's really not a two-pronged test anyway. They'd like to just say "mentally ill" but it doesn't work that way, at least not on paper, so they have to pretend that there's danger there.
 
The only real "danger" they ever can dredge up, is that the person might not  allow the mental "health" system to control his or her life as much as the mental "health" system needs to in order to justify its budget. Now, that's quite a danger-------for the mental "health" system.
 
Of course, we know that the real difference between the "normal" people who are dangerous and the "mentally ill" people who are only alleged to be, is that the former can sometimes (although certainly not frequently, for various reasons) speak out for themselves. They can sometimes fight back. Their stories will sometimes be heard, listened to, and believed.
 
For the people who are "mentally ill" no such dignity would ever be offered. They are completely and absolutely vulnerable. And, they are very fragile. It's so easy for bullies to mess with their minds and their bodies.


"I sometimes think that the psychologist and psychiatrist like to testify in terms of legal conclusions because they have nothing else to say." Hon. David L. Bazelon, "Mental Retardation: Some Legal and Moral Considerations," Address at the Presidential Session of the 1965 Annual Meetings of the American Orthopsychiatric Association, New York City.
 
This was back in the days before psychologists and psychiatrists wrote our forced "treatment" (i.e., drugging) laws, at the behest of their drug company masters.
 
Now it's thirty eight years later, and they still have nothing else to say. Yet, society has handed them complete control over the lives of impoverished citizens.