Parenting & Family Quote by Robert A. Brady

Brady’s line performs a familiar political two-step: affirm personal responsibility, then pivot to a threat that supposedly overwhelms it. The opening clause flatters the listener with consensus - “We all agree” - and preemptively disarms accusations of paternalism. By granting parents “primary responsibility,” he signals respect for family autonomy and small-government instincts. Then the “However” arrives like a trapdoor. Parental agency is recast as insufficient, not because parents are inattentive, but because the digital environment is portrayed as actively predatory.

The key rhetorical move is personification and moral loading. Kids aren’t “finding” content; they’re “lured,” a verb that smuggles in an image of grooming. The websites aren’t merely adult; they’re “obscene,” a category that feels self-evident while remaining conveniently elastic. Most pointedly, search engines are not neutral tools but targets of “devious manipulation,” implying a hidden hand gaming the system. That framing invites regulation without having to name it directly: if the machinery is rigged, intervention becomes protection, not censorship.

Context matters. Brady, a politician shaped by late-20th/early-21st-century culture-war battles, is speaking into recurring panics about children, sexuality, and new media - from the early web to algorithmic search. The subtext is liability-shifting: parents may be responsible in theory, but platforms and shadowy actors are culpable in practice. It’s a pitch for policy that feels reluctant, commonsense, and morally urgent all at once.