Some say the greatest long-term threat to liberty comes from the “woke mind virus” (to repeat a phrase I desperately wish Ron DeSantis would stop using in public, because nobody likes a dork).

Some of our misguided friends on the left would have us believe that it comes from climate change, as if Texans aren’t already voluntarily auditioning for hell anyway. Anti-futurists warn that the headlong rush to develop AI algorithms is a harbinger of human subjugation, although as I have argued in the past, if it results in the wholesale replacement of college DEI administrators first, then I’m willing to experiment a bit in the name of technological progress.

But what if they’re all wrong, and the real threat comes from the briny depths of the ocean? What if Melville was right, and man’s greatest foe is the sea’s brutal master, the whale? Atlantic Monthly — a magazine whose name alone tells you how serious they are about their coverage of this subject — is on the beat, with a piece warning not only about the purported radicalization of killer whales against mankind, but mankind’s foolhardy embrace of these traitors of the murky deep.

You see, apparently killer whales have begun attacking yachts off the coast of Spain with dedicated intent and coordination. They seek to capsize and destroy them. Far too many experts are whistling past the graveyard about this — it’s just “animal curiosity,” they say, chuckling nervously — but at least one professor of biology quoted in the piece claims it is an act of concerted cetacean revenge against boats for prior traumas, and you can trust him because he is a professor. Although the Atlantic of course takes a predictably neoliberal position, shilling for rich Davos liberals and their multimillion-dollar yachts (“don’t worry Mr. Steyer, the animals actually have no problem with you, personally”), many on the left correctly recognize this for what it is: concerted enemy action. And they’re expressing solidarity with what they believe to be the killer whales’ fight-back against capitalist avarice and elite exploitation, as expressed in the form of boat-tipping. Others, like Freddie de Boer, miss the point entirely by saying this debate reflects the essential emptiness of progressive aspiration in 2023 rather than a direct threat to humanity’s continued status as apex predator.

These people, of course, are obviously all fools. With a “bubble mentality” characteristic of leftist discourse, they are so lost in arguing over whether killer whales are motivated by eco-terrorism or Marxist anti-capitalism that neither side even considers the possibility that the whale-songs are coming from the right. And that should worry us all. The very word “orca” (which, akin to the word “scuba,” is an acronym meaning Organization of Radical Cetacean Autonomy) suggests they hail from a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist intellectual tradition and believe themselves to be acting as “private defense agencies” in an otherwise stateless utopia. (In this case academics would be hardest hit, mortified to discover that their hoped-for animal avengers aren’t just right-wing, they’re ideologically incoherent to boot.)

It’s important to point out that the signs were probably there all along. We simply ignored them. The United States has deep-water microphones known to pick up whale song; the NSA has almost certainly long since decoded it and monitors for disinformation and anti-trans propaganda, of which there is no doubt endless amounts down there given the lack of media gatekeepers. And I suspect the worst is true: Killer whales have been sharing Alex Jones conspiracy theories from one pod to another for years now (“They’re turning the seals gay!”). The disinformation industry, noble as it is, is always fighting the last war.

And so, I fear, are many in America’s military. For the whales have now chosen war and have the advantage of surprise and initiative. They are tough fighters, highly motivated, playing with a significant home-field advantage, skilled in complex battlefield communications . . . and now they have a plan. The United States defense industry, which can’t even build an F-35 fighter on time, is hopelessly outclassed here when it comes to high-speed underwater maneuvering technology; we will be lucky if entire flotillas are not taken down now that the Sitzkrieg is over. Though some have proposed arming rebel dolphins in the hopes they’ll tip the balance of the current cetacean threat to seaborne trade routes in America’s favor, I have seen this movie far too many times before: Scientists have been warning for decades now about the grave threat dolphins themselves pose to humanity should they ever get around to evolving opposable thumbs.

Either way we will need a plan, and fast, because the whales are here, capsizing boats with purpose and blubbering about injustice. Understanding the radical roots of their hatred is important in an academic sense, to be sure (years later we want to be able to explain to our grandchildren “why we fight”). But for now we must remember that since killer whales are both noncitizens and convicted killers by their very name, the laws and logic of war inevitably apply. Diplomacy failed. We tried to communicate goodwill. We reformed our ways, shut down Sea World, freed Willy and recorded multiple apologetic tribute albums about it featuring Eddie Vedder on ukulele. My God, we even made Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But peace was never an option, and now we must take the fight to them: We must kill the whales.