Have a look at Makkos 1:10 (7a): “Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva say, ‘If we had been on the Sanhedrin, no one would have ever been executed.'”
Now, are R. Tarfon and R. Akiva “declaring that there’s no punishment”? Are they denying pesukim in the Torah that openly say that someone who does X is put to death by method Y? Chas veshalom. They’re saying, as the Gemara there makes it clear, that they would use the Torah’s very own methods to bring up technicalities that would, in practice, cause the death penalty to not be applied in any given case.
Well, then, what prevents you from taking R. Friedman’s statement in the same vein? (A point that Yaakov Yosef has already cogently made. As for R. Feldman, see below.) Consider how in our most recent interaction on VIN you thought that anyone who regrets the deaths of the Meraglim doesn’t believe in sechar ve’onesh, whereupon I cited for you Shulchan Aruch and Beis Yosef and Shelah who indeed express such regret and practical actions on that basis. So it should be very clear that there is a world of difference between saying that there is sechar ve’onesh, and saying that it must needs apply in this case or that one.
(This also answers your pretended contradiction between R. Miller’s and, יבלח”ט, R. Friedman’s, statements. Both, of course, believe in sechar ve’onesh; R. Miller is saying that it actually applies in practice to a person who does such-and-such, while R. Friedman is saying that it does not. Really no different than any other machlokes in halachah where Rabbi A says that someone is chayav and Rabbi B says he’s patur. For more on the television issue, see below.)
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Now, as for R. Feldman’s criticisms of R. Friedman:
I think that there’s no question that it would have been better, and smoothed things over a lot, if R. Feldman had indeed picked up the phone and asked R. Friedman point-blank what he meant and what are his sources. Does that _obligate_ R. Feldman to have done so before making his video? Well, I’m not about to tell a world-class talmid chacham what he’s obligated to do, and I don’t think that Yaakov Yosef meant any such thing either.
But here’s the critical part: there is a vast difference between what a manhig b’Yisroel (like R. Feldman) does, and what ordinary Aharons or Sheldons like you or I do. Let’s consider: you (by your own admission to me in the past) can’t learn Gemara without Artscroll. I can, but (by my own admission above) am unfamiliar with many areas of Torah literature, and have to depend on others who have gathered the relevant sources. How does either of us begin to compare with R. Feldman, who has spent his entire life studying Torah and making Hashem’s Will his will, and who has thousands of Bnei Torah to his credit? The Gemara tells us that a talmid chacham’s anger can be justified because “the Torah burns within him,” and that he needs to be “vengeful and grudge-bearing like a snake” for the honor of the Torah; do you think that these apply to people who are far below that caliber? Well, then, if R. Feldman saw something that (in his Torah-molded mind) is objectionable in R. Friedman’s talks, then yes, he has _earned the right_ – through his decades of service of Hashem – to call it out in the strongest terms (and to decide, with the same Torah mind, whether he needs to first talk to R. Friedman about it). You do not, any more than I could read a couple of books about dentistry and then decide that I can waltz into your office and start doing root canals.
(I might also add: consider how just now you thought that a certain gadol called Religious Zionists “kofrim,” when in fact (a) you had the wrong gadol, (b) he was referring to a different group, and (c) he didn’t even use the word “kofrim” or “kefirah.” And that was with the English translation right there in front of you! Can you honestly say that your “Toras Qwerty613” is otherwise so truthful, so rational and free of errors, as to use it to sit in judgment on others’ statements without at least checking with them first?! And notice, as above, how many times before that, too, you’ve taken it as a given that no one could possibly believe such-and-such – “checkmate” – and been wholly unaware of sources to the contrary that I, by no stretch of the imagination a great talmid chacham, found.)
Note, too, that R. Feldman _doesn’t_ call R. Friedman a kofer. He says that his statements are kefirah and that he’s a “bor birshus harabbim” (a pit – i.e., danger – in the public domain). You may think those are the same thing, but they are not; as an example, R. Hillel makes a statement in Sanhedrin 99a (אין משיח לישראל) which the Gemara itself harshly criticizes, and which the Radvaz says is flat-out kefirah – and he also says that R. Hillel is not branded a kofer for it, but an annus.
You, on the other hand, seem to delight in labeling anyone you don’t like, right off the bat, with all kinds of personal epithets. So yes, it is your responsibility, before doing so, to make sure that you have checked every side of the issue (and yes, that includes calling people up and asking them what they meant). And even after doing so, really, you lose nothing but your ego in staying quiet; again as Yaakov Yosef well put it, see to it that you’re in compliance with the 613 mitzvos (as, for example, R. Feldman is) before you start on this “614th” one.
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Television:
First of all, who ever said that R. Miller’s position is “the last word”? Seems that this is yet another example of you reading something that isn’t there. In fact I asked whether, quote, “any Torah authority disagrees with R. Miller on this… if you can find such, then we have a basis to talk.” So we can start by asking which major Posek you asked, and then ask him why he holds that R. Miller’s comparison to ספרים החיצונים is incorrect (as the Gemara often puts it, “what would he do with” that analogy).
And again, that he disagrees doesn’t _invalidate_ R. Miller’s right to a different opinion. What should one do in practice? Consult one’s own rav. We might, though, also note that your Posek isn’t saying that one _has to_ have a TV, just that there’s no problem with doing so. Very well, then, one can not have a TV and be yotzei both!
Your comparison with a computer doesn’t even begin, considering the basic point that computers are used widely as a tool for parnassah, while TV is rarely if ever used for that purpose. In halachah, we have the din that it’s assur to go to certain places where women are not dressed tznius’dik (the example in the Gemara is the riverbank, where women would roll up their sleeves and hitch up their dresses to launder clothes) unless “one has no other way” to get to some other place; R. Moshe Feinstein in fact has a teshuvah on the subject (Orach Chaim 1:56) where he explains in the same vein that there is a heter, where it’s necessary for parnassah, to go to such a place and rely on one’s ability to avoid untoward thoughts, while there is no such heter where there’s no need. Again, to me that seems to quite obviously map to the distinction between a computer (necessary) and a TV (not), but again I’d be interested to hear your Posek’s views on the subject.