A common question asked of political rights is where do they come from and how are they granted. There are several different justifications for the inclusion of rights in a constitutional system. These vary slightly depending on how the political philosophy views the individual.

Since the enlightenment focused social endeavour on individual autonomy as the primary source, the notion of universal political rights have risen. This is present in republicanism, liberalism, libertarianism and progressivism. All these political philosophies focus on the individual as the dominant political entity.

Republicanism views the purpose of government as ensuring the liberty of the individual. Tyranny or despotism has no place in a republican system. The rights or just demands of an individual's agreeance to follow the will of the majority in a government system come with the assurance of freedom from tyranny or arbitrary government.

A bill of rights becomes a political technology that ensures the liberty of the individual and describes tyranny. It creates a sphere of exclusion for government that it cannot legislate over.

As covered in a previous article, Dan Deniehy took a natural rights view of republicanism. This describes moral perfection as the end result of human achievement, maturation and growth. Deniehy writes that tyranny and despotism are the dominant affliction against this purpose.

Consequently the tyranny becomes a crime against mankind's destiny - a crime against nature. This is a non-religious argument for natural rights. The religious argument for natural rights is quite simply that rights are granted by God. This is less sophisticated than Deniehy's argument and reliant on faith.

Progressives view rights as an intrinsic function of being human. For this reason they are often called Human Rights by the progressive movement. The progressives view rights as being greater than the simply eradication of tyranny and protection of liberty as republicans do and often include more ambiguous rights of a social nature such as the right to dignity or the right to education.

These are fine principles to maintain, however, they do not have a place in a constitutional document as they are nearly impossible to quantify. For instance writing brutally explicit language on the right to dignity is impossible.

Libertarians view rights in terms of the intrinsic value of the individual. This philosophy often terms them individual rights. Libertarianism does not have the same focus on tyranny as republicanism does and is merely interested in the primacy and dominance of the individual as a political being.

Of these justifications for rights I believe the republican definition to be superior. It is constitutionally achievable through explicit constitutional language and separation of powers.

The focus on the eradication of tyranny and political equity are important principles in democratic and representative systems.

Under republicanism rights are a very essential political technology which better serves the protection of liberty from arbitrary government.

Charles Harpur and Dan Deniehy saw republicanism as a vehicle toward humanity advancing to the point of moral perfection. That is a very noble goal, I am not sure that I share humanities capability of achieving that end, certainly not in my lifetime, but in an infinite future I can see humanity constantly advancing and progressing toward something that approximates what Harpur or Deniehy believed.

Their view on liberty and tyranny I share whole-heartedly. A very pragmatic and short-term improvement is the advance of the political technologies and organisation in such a manner to make tyranny and arbitrary government difficult, if not impossible. Most of these tools are available to us today, and many of them have been developed locally.

Australia's major gift to liberty has been the secret ballot but electorally we have been innovative anyway. Hare-Clark voting, Robson Rotation to name a few. I have said in the past Australian Republicans are Democrats too. In this area republicans are strong technologists who see the structures of government as having value as technologies rather than expressions of nationalism, culture and prestige.

Those emergent properties of a technical system are important but not to the point that it swamps the use of the system as an auditable, empirical process that can be improved or replaced with a better technology.

The empirical nature and strong history of Australian Republicanism gives it a conservative bent, while the focus on liberty and eradication of tyranny gives it a strong liberal approach. It has appeals to all points of the political spectrum.

There may come a time when the individuals that make up humanity find internal perfection, but the moral, ethical, social, cultural and economic improvement of the individual as a republican goal is certainly a noble one. Especially when it is predicated under increasing liberty.

The immediate goal is the eradication of tyranny in its absolute and insidious forms. This is achievable now with present political technologies . This point is the base from which maximum liberty is sought.