Have you ever sat and listened to a group of small children talking about their parents? There is always an enormous amount of pride and fervor in their little voices. Those words of admiration leap from their inner beings.

“My dad is the greatest baseball player!” ”My mom is the best cook in the world!” “My dad is the smartest man in the universe!” “My mom tells the best bedtime stories!” On and on they go, describing the positive merits of their loving parents. Parents have always been the core of American society, instilling in their children a belief that positive behavior is both good and proper.

But think of children in elementary classes of the future. Consider what the conversations might be, reflecting the current events of our societal role models.

“My dad’s a cop and he can arrest your dad and throw him in jail any time he feels like it.” “My dad’s a senator and he’s above the law. He makes the laws, but he isn’t answerable to them.” “My dad’s an athlete and he doesn’t have to follow any rules. He can come and go from drug usage to drug sales to rehabilitation centers until the proverbial hell freezes over!” “My father’s a minister, and it’s OK to have an illegitimate brother, two sisters and something else on the way. My mom cries about all my dad’s mistresses, but that’s ’cause mom’s a woman!”

Can you imagine this wonderful and insightful conversation being played out in elementary schools around the country?

If you are in your early 20s, these may be your children - children who will reflect the attitude of a recent State News editorial, “Senate should avoid expulsion despite reprehensible actions” (SN 5/24). David Jaye was a state senator. He paraded himself in front of the people of Michigan as one of 38 senators, the leaders of our society. He should have been held accountable for improper actions.

It is reprehensible that he and others still follow an old warped idea of, “Do as I say, not as I do!”

I reflect on the words of friends who say we have no right to get rid of a person who represents a certain majority of voters, even if his or her behavior is awful and the State News editorial that ended with, “If the voters of Washington Township feel a sleazy man represents their political values, so be it, but sleaziness does not warrant expulsion from the Michigan Senate.”

Were those same kinds of words used in the German press of the 1930s to describe Adolph Hitler? The Duma shouldn’t censure good ol’ Adolph because of some simple reprehensible behavior? We fought a very bloody war that unmasked completely and totally reprehensible behavior.

Do I compare Jaye, or the cop who uses his badge to carry out personal vendettas, or the athlete who runs rampant through society using people as the doormats of his existence, or the minister who preaches on Sunday and leaves the precepts of his religion on the altar to the megalomaniacal Hitler?

Absolutely not! These individuals have not fallen to the depths Hitler fell to, along with his worthless minions.

But all of them, Hitler included, fit into the same category of wretched role models. They have violated society. They have done wrong and then spit in the face of that same society. They have chosen to believe their actions are sacrosanct simply because they say so. They commit crimes and then take no responsibility for them.

Jaye gets drunk, gets arrested, gets drunk, gets arrested, commits other improprieties and then expects everything to be as it was. There is no guilt, no remorse and no sense of responsibility for his actions.

I wonder if people today really believe anyone is responsible for their actions.

Perhaps they feel only certain people must pay for anything they do, and a special group are given carte blanche to do anything they want with no recourse or responsibility.

It is beginning to appear that anyone who exhibits some sort of power or notoriety today loudly screams he or she is NOT a role model. They have no influence on anyone, and it is criminal for anyone to assume they do.

Well, I am not sorry to say I don’t believe these warped attitudes. Men and women spouting every form of diatribe, acting in every conceivable unscrupulous manner and breaking every law in the books who place themselves before hundreds, thousands and millions of individuals ARE role models for those who listen and see them in action.

They influence the behavior of everyone, from young street people to ignorant characters who have little or no ability to think for themselves.

No matter how much they claim to not influence people, they do.

It is our job to speak loudly against these worthless role models and censure them every time they violate the simple dictates of proper behavior in an intelligent society.

Craig Gunn, director of the communication program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, can be reached at gunn@egr.msu.edu.