Last night, late, as I was working, an HBO documentary about Barry Goldwater was playing in the background. It's a fine piece of biography, although I found myself melancholy after it was over.

I pine for Barry Goldwater. And Sam Ervin. I pine for an entire generation of leaders who were genuine statesmen. They framed the debate in larger terms than "what can we get now..."

Today's generation of power-grabbing chimps pales in comparison to those folks.

I grew up in Arizona and, of course, that's where Barry came from too. Against that big landscape he learned -- maybe we all do, if we pay attention -- that there are callings in life larger than your immediate desires.

There's this great big American idea. And the idea that doesn't tolerate torture or secret prison or non-stop surveillance.

While that's the quick punch list G.W. Bush abuses, let's not make any mistakes about this: it's something we're doing as a nation. Sure, Bush introduced these horrors to our national character, but we're going along with it. After all, we're not stopping it, are we?

And all of these things are anti-conservative. No real conservative, no real patriot, could abide by this surveillance society. We fought a revolutionary war to do away with secret trials and the like.

Barry would have hated all this.

See, Barry knew something all the great statesmen knew: the soul of democracy is about what you don't do as a nation.

Democracy, ultimately, is about not using power. Democracy overthrows kings and dictators not because they're bad -- democracy doesn't care about whether they're good or bad. Democracy overthrows kings and dictators because they wield too much power. Simple as that. The best king is worse than the most chaotic democracy.

The democratic exercise is all about determining what the government can't do. Indeed, the historical debate between liberals and conservatives centered on the nuances of whether government should rightly be involved in, say, desegregating education or creating social security.

If you were to propel a study group of Senators from the 1960s -- regardless of bent -- to today, they would be horrified at what we've become. They would look at our secret prisons and our secret trials and our wiretapping and our absurdly named "Patriot Act" and they would be baffled.

The would say, "But this is what we hate about the Soviets... Why are you doing this?"

Some of us might reply, "It makes us feel safer."

And they would shake their heads and respond, "Safer? From whom? Those guys hiding in caves who fight you with box cutters."

"Yeah them."

They would say, "Let us get this straight. We've got a nation with a few thousand nuclear weapons pointed at us and we still believe in civil liberties and you've got a lunatic hiding in a cave somewhere and he scares you so much you're willingly giving up rights? So what are you fighting for, then?"

And then Barry Goldwater would come up and give us a history lesson.

He'd remind us that the very civil liberties that we're now happily relinquishing were established by people in a much more dangerous world than ours.

Our civil liberties came from be pens of Americans who had entire empires against lined up against them. We were the little daring upstart nation and we had everything to risk. We lived in a time of real danger, one that was more palpable than psychopathic poor people hiding in caves.

The enemies back then could launch an entire armada against us. They could invade our soil, not just plant a few bombs. We were the weaklings in truly dangerous world and still we established those civil liberties. We wanted hard and clear limits about what government can do to our population and to the world.

Today, we give these up so willingly because someone markets fear to us. Old "Tom Jefferson" -- as Barry used to call him -- would be very disappointed in Americans today. We are behaving like people who don't deserve civil liberties.

Barry spent his life meditating on what governments should not do. And he hated lies and liars. He hated Nixon simply because he felt Nixon debased the great American experiment by exploiting his power. Nixon felt that if you can do it, you should. Barry despised that.

Today, in America we've forgotten this and live in a nation in which power runs unrestrained.

It's hard to look at the Hewlett Packard scandal and not think: "is anyone really surprised by this?" I mean, as a nation we're trampling on old values that we have fought for countless times. And so HP says, hey, if it's good enough for Washington, it's good enough for us.

I have hiked the trails that Barry Goldwater hiked and seen the horizons that he saw. We know about lands without water or protection where people can do things to each other unseen if they wish.

We were both instructed by that harsh Arizona landscape where being people who are true to their word and who don't stick their nose where it doesn't belong and who believe in a common good were the bedrock issues of civilization. And of democracy.

So now we're in a place where leadership in congress knowingly enables a child predator because it seemed politically expedient. Barry Goldwater would have hunted those jokers down and punched them in the nose. And I'm not joking about that.

See Barry expected the finest from our leaders. He wanted them to be the most restrained and honorable. It's simple really. If you have restrained and honorable people leading your nation you can be sure you will have a restrained and honorable government.

Now, American conservatism has slipped into the role of they always accused the liberals of encouraging: the reckless application of governmental power, unrestrained by logic or ethics.

To be a conservative today means you want government involved in every aspect of your life, you want no limits on what government can do, it means you hate civil liberties, it means you live with fear and anger.

That's not the conservatives that I recall. That's sure as hell not Barry Goldwater -- he stood for something more. Even though I fall on the liberal side of things, I recognize that a great and good conservative tradition has existed in America. I yearn for a return of those giants of conservatism.

Meanwhile, American liberals are nothing more than auto-castratos, eagerly seeking out and nominating the most ineffectual and cowardly leaders available. Sam Ervin would cringe.

There's no genuine liberal philosophy any longer. Nothing that's robust enough to stand up against the withering assault of a million special interests. There's no more integrity on the liberal side of things than there is on the conservative -- just because you're the opposition party doesn't mean you're doing the right thing.

Sen. Russ Feingold is just about the only contemporary liberal who looks like he's cut from the old cloth. He appears to value ideas and ethics over political realities.

Now if could only locate a conservative who is similarly built. Someone like Barry, someone who didn't toe the party line when the big issues of democracy are at stake.

If we could could sort through the dwarfs who think of themselves as leaders now and find another Barry, then the dialog that would come between that person and Feingold would be interesting indeed.

Every now and then I think John McCain might be that guy on the conservative side. He comes close and he was raised on the same bony Arizona landscape where Barry and I come from. See in Arizona, you don't have a lot of inherited power structure and relationships; all you've got is what you can do and what you stand for. That builds character.

But McCain disappoints so often. He gets close to that space where he rises above the mechanics of politics and takes the bold stand. But then, at the last minute behind closed doors, he tends to back off and crumble. He did that a few weeks ago on the prison and interrogation issue.

Maybe someday McCain will get over whatever makes him lose his nerve and then he can become then next great -- and I mean great in the truest sense -- American conservative.

And if that happens, Feingold and McCain might revive the big and noble debate that framed most of American history. They could rescue the great big ideas of America from the venal hoodlums who now hold it captive.

I disagreed with Barry about a lot of things while he was alive. And I spoke with him on several occasions and disagreed with him to his face. To his credit, he always was willing to talk to the other side.

Today, I'd give anything to have him back. Raising hell. Punching noses. Standing for big idea, regardless. Chasing the wiretappers out of Washington, singlehandedly if necessary.

Barry, we need you. Now more than ever.