Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I don't get your Undiebomber-related firing campaign.  It seems short-sighted.  Why are you baying for the blood of some random person when, as you say, this case was a system-wide failure?  So you admit that no one person did anything specifically wrong.  Isn't it a much more useful tool to get these people fanning out, searching their network for solutions rather than diving into the nearest foxhole for a few months?  I don't want anyone fired over this, I want people invested in improving the system. 

I don't see how this is accomplished by knocking off a few department heads and then installing new, inexperienced people in their place, people who will need to climb a learning curve and reshuffle the working structure.  I don't get how firing the very people who now have a VERY strong investment in bug-fixing these problems will help.  This happened because agencies were too busy protecting their own turf to see the bigger picture, and your response is to bring that to the micro level, threatening individuals with firing and ensuring that they WON'T extend themselves to find a fix.  Who the hell takes it upon themselves to try and fix the system, if the next time the system breaks, they get burnt alive?  How on earth is this remotely effective?

I do not favor firing some random person. I favor firing those who failed to see the clear data in front of them and take appropriate action. Blaming the system if it fails while exonerating those who enabled and didn't challenge the system even when something this obvious, this well-flagged and this dangerous comes on the radar is a cop-out.