Warning: This post contains strong language that some unpatriotic readers, or Canadians, might find offensive.

The bald eagle is 100 percent totally badass. This isn’t an opinion; it’s a fact. Look at this fucking thing. It’s majestic as shit. The Continental Congress knew that, and so on June 20, 1782, it didn’t opt for a dumbass pigeon or lame-looking horse; it included the dinosaur (yeah it’s a fucking dinosaur) on the Great Seal of the United States, forever making this raptor a symbol of everything hot dogs, fireworks, and KFC Double-Downs.

Chris Pratt couldn’t even train this baby raptor.

It takes a bald eagle — its name coming from an old English word “bald” or “piebald,” meaning “white-headed,” which we continue to confuse Americans with because suck it King George III — a full five years to develop its characteristically freedom-loving white head and tail feathers. But even when it’s a fledgling, it looks like it could rip your damn face off while chugging a Mountain Dew Code Red and riding a motorcycle over a dozen flaming buses.

The beautiful plumage of the bald eagle is like an aircraft carrier for American exceptionalism, and other birds, apparently. The bald eagle isn’t beholden to our petty human rules.

Bald eagles are known to give zero fucks.

Which brings us to the physiology of our American salmon-stabber. Its skeleton weighs less than a pound, and has eyesight four times better than a human with perfect vision. “You can’t see shit,” is what they are probably shrieking at us. That light frame and predator vision helps the bald eagle zero in on unsuspecting and possibly French prey with ass-kicking talons.

Bald eagles and other raptors have talons that lock in place as they literally crush the fucking bones of their enemies. As the eagle engages its death grip, notched tendon sheaths in its feet move over similarly notched tendons, effectively creating a ratcheting effect. The bald eagle decides when to let its enemies go, not the other way around. And with an estimated 400 pounds per square inch of crushing force, the bald eagle’s kung fu grip is an inescapable vice of flying fury.

It’s not even trying to be a symbol for everything free.

The bald eagle doesn’t bother sweating either, despite the fact that it has an internal temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius). Sweating is for puny animals that don’t have a flesh-shredding hook accompanying the rest of the razor-sharp beak on the end of its face.

Finally, your human lungs should feel stupid. The bald eagle (and birds in general) has a respiratory system that allows air to flow just one way through its lungs, meaning a highly efficient collection of sweet USA oxygen. That’s why their faces looks like that; they are always judging your dumbass lungs.

Dumbass lungs.

Images: Arctic Warrior; USFWSmidwest; Phoo Chan; Jason Mrachina