I'm Megna Chakrabardi and this is the Jack Pod, a weekly special drop where on-point news

analyst Jack Bede helps us connect history, literature and politics in a way that brings

unique clarity to the world we live in now.

Hello there, Jack.

Hello, Megna.

Well, today it's episode eight of the Jack Pod and Jack, usually this is the point at

which I ask you about the headline for today's episode, but I'm going to break protocol

this time because I already know that you want to talk about Wednesday's awful mass shooting

in Lewis and Maine, where at least 18 people were killed and 13 injured.

This is the 565th mass shooting in the United States this year.

That's according to a nonprofit data collection group called the Gun Violence Archive.

And so, Jack, I thought, given the grim consistency of mass shootings in this country, what more

of what knew could be said, but you've got something for us.

Well, it's just that, you know, there was a book published about Iraq 20 years ago with

the title Republic of Fear.

Well, I don't know whether it fits Iraq then or it certainly did under Saddam Hussein

but it fits America now, doesn't it?

We are a Republic of Fear.

And why is that?

Because the state has failed and it's the government has failed and it's fundamental responsibility

which is to protect the citizenry.

In his myth of the social contract, Thomas Hobbes says, what is life without the state?

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