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>>9712256, >>9712274 Is vandalism of a national monument a misdemeanor or felony?
Not clear to me what the answer is on this question from these regs. Below is a law review article exploring the broader question of whether it's culturally acceptable to destroy statutes. Author say yes, under some circumstances, so he's probably not conservative. But could provide more insight into the legal side of the question. Here's an excerpt (long article):
==Monuments to the Confederacy and the Right to
Destroy in Cultural-Property Law==
E . PEROT BISSELL V (2019)
In this Note, I argue that cultural-heritage law should recognize a limited
right to destroy cultural property. A government should be permitted to destroy
its cultural property, but only when that property was established in celebration
of a violation of the customary international law of human rights. This approach
recognizes the values served by destruction without casting aside the valuable
protection that cultural-heritage law has afforded historically and aesthetically
important art and architecture.
Part I sets out the background for this theory: historically, cultural-property
law developed in response to widely deplored acts of destruction. As a result, the
law orients itself around the value of preservation. However, cultural-property
law has not meaningfully considered either why preservation is valuable or what
deserves legal protection. It has also not considered when the destruction of cultural property might be warranted or desirable.
Part II points out the flaws of such a regime. I argue that important expressive and cathartic values can be served through the converse of cultural-property
law’s core value: destruction. I then examine some of the most commonly offered
alternatives to destruction and conclude that a community could reasonably prefer destruction over these alternatives in some cases….
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9326&context=ylj
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol128/iss4/5/
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This author is probably not interested in the current penalties for defacing or destroying statutes, only in whether it's acceptable by cultural standards.