Idea for a sitcom:

A cultured, big-city lawyer -- let's call him Oliver Wendell Jackson -- gets a hankering to pursue his childhood dream of farming.

He snatches up his reluctant but glamorous Nigerian-born wife, LakaLisa, sells his luxury penthouse in the heart of downtown Detroit for millions, and journeys a block and a half away to a ramshackle farmhouse.  Sure, there're some neglected pavement to plow over and a crack-whore or two who hadn't yet got the Detroit-is-toast memo, but for the most part, there's nothing but emptiness for as far as our protagonist's eyes can see.

Over the course of the show, Oliver encounters an eclectic mix of rural rubes, including a shyster salesman, a dimwitted farmhand, a scatterbrained county agent, and a high school-educated pig that understands English and enjoys watching television.  Each week, as Oliver stands outside, surveying the miles of deluded Detroit farmland, with lungs full of air unsullied by even the least bit of effluence from industry or commerce, he blares:

Deeeeetroit is the place to be.
Farm living is the life for me.
Land spreading out so far and wide.
Thanks, libs, for all of this countryside.

Who's going to buy that?  An English-understanding, television-obsessed pig, maybe, but a downtown Detroit penthouse selling for millions?  Nah!  Maybe if the selling price was something a bit more realistic in the Detroit housing market -- say, pocket change, which is what your more swanky pads are going for these days in the city that's become an international punch line for liberal folly.

In all the commentary on why Detroiters' best option might be to reinstitute Devil's Night on a citywide scale and collect the insurance, the party who bears the most responsibility is largely being uncommented upon -- black politicians.  To gain political power, black politicians (all Democrats) intentionally bankrupted Detroit and left its black communities helpless and impoverished.  It's a political strategy called the Curly Effect, named for James Michael Curley, who employed it to build a political dynasty as mayor of Boston in the first half of the last century.

The way it works is fiendishly simple.  Black politicians pass laws that extort wealth by gunpoint from those better off (the so-called rich) and give it to those less so (the poor) -- in this case, poor blacks.  Over time, made dependent on government largess for survival, an ever-growing number of poor blacks vote for the black politician, who promises to shower them with the most free goodies paid for by the "evil rich."  This is how black political dynasties are born and nourished in this nation.  As the saying goes, "Those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul."

This rob-the-rich-to-give-to-the poor strategy has a huge flaw, though.  The rich don't get rich and stay rich by being stupid or stationary.  They're highly mobile and motivated.  When they encounter confiscatory taxes and anti-wealth rhetoric that's frequently racially charged, they have a high propensity to skedaddle and take their wealth, businesses and opportunities with them to more welcoming climes like Texas.

The result is Detroit.  It's no more complicated than that.

Wherever black politicians take control, industry, commerce, opportunity, and liberty are not going to be allowed to flourish.  It's in black politicians' best interest for them to decline, which is why in Detroit about all that's left are poor blacks, rats, and railroad tracks.  (At least the tracks that haven't been torn up by crack addicts and sold for scrap.)  Have any doubt?  Let's examine some of the cities that elected black mayors to great liberal applause:

• Cleveland. In 1967, the good libs of Cleveland elected Carl Stokes. All you need to know about Stokes's tenure is that before his coming, the Mistake by the Lake was famous for its river, the Cuyahoga, catching fire due to pollution from the city's many booming industries. No problem now -- no industries, no pollution, no fire. Who knew environmentalism could work out so well? Now, what to do with all these poor blacks?

• Philadelphia. Elected in 1984, Wilson Goode holds the distinction of being the first black municipal official in America to drop a bomb on other black Americans, leaving 11 dead and hundreds homeless. If you've had the misfortune to visit New York City, you have absolutely no reason to stop in on its even more dreary and depressing first cousin, Philly. The place is known for its stale history, dreadful sports franchises, horrid accents, and indigestible cuisine. Wilson is now a member of the black clergy. Go figure.

• Chicago. Harold Washington's main claim to fame was being the Ice Cube on the Shores of Lake Michigan's first black mayor. The best that can be said about Harold, elected mayor in 1983, is that he left us before he had a chance to really screw things up. Unfortunately, the liberal policies he championed were carried on in his name, leading to economic and morale meltdown of black communities across the city and the high rate of homicides among its black youth.

• Washington, D.C. Marion Barry. A civil rights activist (the first clue) who was elected in 1979. In 1990, the FBI videotaped Marion smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room. Convicted and imprisoned for six months in a federal prison, Marion was later re-elected mayor by blacks in 1994. At least Marion didn't rape anyone or have sex with a naïve intern, like a certain other negro-pimping Democrat who comes to mind.

• Newark. Mayor Kenneth Gibson. The only thing black that did well under Gibson's stewardship was the trillions of big black flies that grew fat feasting on Newark's garbage-strewn streets. Elected in 1970, Gibson proved to be such a disaster that today his dismal record would qualify him to be elected president of the United States -- twice. Newark sucks.

• Which brings us back to Detroit. If you ever wanted to experience a long, slow death, all you would need to do is lived under the leadership of Coleman Young, who served as mayor of the now motorless city of Motown from 1974 to 1994. During his twenty years in office, Coleman helped destroy a city that was once the fourth-largest in the United States and among the richest on the planet.

Alas, no more -- but I know where I can get you a luxury penthouse in the heart of the city for the change in your pocket.  The seller is a farmer who is highly motivated.  He lives just blocks away, so you won't have to journey far to close the deal.

The Drive-By Pundit is the pen name of Perry Drake, author of two recently published e-books, The Book of Racist Democrat Quotes and "Democratic Nigger!": The Long, Racist, Bloody Account of the Democrat Party's Hatred for Blacks.  Both are available on Amazon.com.  Perry can be reached at prrydrake@yahoo.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/perry.drake.10, and on Twitter @Perry_Drake.