The Hand on the Faucet

Cutting off the bad guys from their money supplies is a well-established policing strategy, but is it also the right way to sanction attacks on the rule of law and democracy? We have seen this question arise twice this week: First, the German neonazi party NPD, after being found anti- but not unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court (don’t ask), is about to be stripped of its claim to state funding my means of a constitutional amendment, on which project the Home Affairs Committee of the Bundestag has heard half a dozen of experts last Monday and received some well-founded criticism. Second, the constitutional capture in Poland a…