Nowadays people think a declaration of independence needs to be followed immediately by a constitution. But our founding fathers had other priorities. On that same fateful day of July 4, 1776, the Journals of the Continental Congress reveal what was most pressing. "Resolved," it declared, "that Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson, be a committee, to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America." First and foremost, we needed a corporate logo.

According to the excellent historical site greatseal.com, it took six weeks, but finally each committee member brought in a suggestion. Franklin suggested a picture of Moses standing on the shore, bathed in a divine light on the shore, with his hand raised over the sea and waves crashing on the Pharaoh.

Jefferson suggested a picture just a little later in the same Biblical narrative, of the Israelites wandering the wilderness, following a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Adams wanted a picture of Hercules at a fork in the road, choosing between self-indulgence and honor.

Can you imagine any of these seals on a podium fronting George Bush? Neither could the Continental Congress. It was back to the drawing board.

Over the next six years, two more preliminary committees submitted ideas such as a warrior holding a sword and an olive branch, a "phoenix in flames," a pyramid with a floating eye above it, and a rooster.

Finally, as peace talks were underway in Paris in 1782, a deadline was upon us to come up with something that could be used to properly ratify a treaty. If you've ever had to order business cards for a new business in time for a particular event, you know the pressure they felt of coming up with a logo basically overnight.

So we got the bald eagle. A couple years later Franklin expressed his disappointment. The eagle, he wrote, was a cowardly bird, and of bad moral character. What he wrote was essentially a poetic description of the government we have today. "Too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him."

Franklin would have preferred a turkey. The turkey is the only poultry native to America. And it is, "though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

In the two centuries since then, we have learned even more about turkeys that would have made them a better choice. They have been around for more than ten million years. They can spot movement on from one hundred yards away. They can be heard from a mile away.

If we as citizens could only have spotted the big-government movement that has been happening over the past hundred years, or if we could only have made enough sound to have been heard, perhaps we would still have all of our liberties. We no longer even hesitate, let alone actually defend our homes from an attack. We hand over our most private information voluntarily, and do not object when it is taken from us by stealth, because we are not terrorists. We have nothing to hide. Let them brand us and track us and videotape us.

Instead, we have become even lower than the eagle that presides over us. We have been tamed, and that's the saddest thing of all. Wild turkeys can run up to 25 miles per hour. Wild turkeys can fly at up to 55 miles per hour.

But not domesticated turkeys. They, and we merely eat, reproduce, and wait to die.

Isn't it time we stopped letting our government give us the bird?

phil@maymin.com