There are people in many countries of the world who decline to participate in killing other humans just because their governments adopt a “zero tolerance” policy. Reformers have used a variety of definitions in an effort to establish an acceptable universal standard for such conscious objections to be legally valid. C.O. status used to be granted only to people who claimed it on the grounds of religious conviction but the religion part has been de-emphasized over the years (as some religions profess enthusiasm for official murder and as religious belief in itself has become less universal). The standards are now seen to include purely personal moral codes. The search for an acceptable worldwide phrasing continues. The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights is as close as we have come so far, and not everyone is ready to accept that (Mr. Trump, among others). But all agree that a key qualification for wartime C.O. status is that one’s beliefs must include all wars — not just a particular one.

The choice of applying for recognition of one’s C.O. status in preference to “just going along, with personal reservations” has never been popular. During World War II there were 34 and a half million men who served in the U.S. armed forces. 72,354 applied for C.O. exemptions when drafted — two tenths of one percent. It is an understatement to say that they were not then generally looked upon with approval. Similar numbers can be found for other countries, on both sides of that conflict, although in many of those countries the stigma was greater and in some it was never even an option.

But when it came to finding a suitable international definition for the Universal Declaration, there are several sticky wickets. Does the right include all wars, or only declared ones? Can the principle be recognized in non-war situations? If a government issues orders to its civilians to “Find all the Jews, turn them out of their houses, steal their belongings, strip them naked, check their teeth for possibly salvageable gold fillings, then stick your pistol in their mouths and blow their heads off”, were those citizens obliged by patriotic duty to obey, or did they have the option of declining to personally participate in pogroms? We have argued the point in courts. Eichmann’s conviction and hanging may have made us feel better and pointed the way, but it hardly settled the issue. According to Jeff Sessions the Bible does not accord that freedom to American Christians, at least. They are bound to follow the law — just or unjust. According to Donald Trump the question is irrelevant — it is all his persecutors’ fault : the Democrats have saddled him with a law that forbids us to even discuss the subject. He may be unhappy about it, but he remains law abiding.

So what about our Border Patrol agents in Texas? They signed up to join a military branch, sort of a dry-land Coast Guard. Steady employment, no advanced degree required, nice family allowance, good pension after 20 years. They thought they knew what their job was going to be. Patrol the border, catch and send back attempted illegal immigrants “wetbacks” looking for off-the-books work. They joined ICE and swore an oath to defend our country. Have they now an obligation in the light of the new job specifications (which now apparently include ripping nursing babies from their mothers’ breasts) to reconsider their individual actions from a moral point of view? If we maintain that World War II was the fault of the German citizenry for not opposing Hitler when Mein Kampf first hit the bookstalls, before he could assemble his crew of thugs and storm troopers, how can we now defend Mssrs. Sessions and Trump and their enablers? How can patrolmen defend their personal willingness to participate as they break up groups of incoming immigrants, deliberately fouling their life-giving water bottles, separating mothers and fathers from their babies as they risk everything in attempts to cross our desert border in search of a better life? How areTrump’s tweets Trump different from Mein Kampf?

Seems to me it’s time to stop allowing these questions to hide in the thickets of footnotes in liberal journals and on the Fox News shows where they can be debated to death while those babies are taught that there is no one to turn to for protection, no one to be trusted, only the permanent threat of self-serving politicians.

My hope is that each individual border patrolman will decide to answer these questions for himself or herself. Our established “Deep State” doesn’t seem to be prepared to defend common sense. But those babies will survive and grow up and we will have to deal with them and the lessons we have taught them, one way or another, here or in Mexico, or just within our consciences.

They have it within their power, we have it within our power, to fix it. Put down the guns, comfort the babies, and try to be helpful as the families struggle to find a foothold in an unforgiving world.

It seems to me we have arrived at the point where each one of us has to ask himself or herself the question: “What will I tell my grandchildren when they ask me? Where did I stand?”