"My own opinion only, but to me, shorting, while legal, is...

"My own opinion only, but to me, shorting, while legal, is immoral. It's not "investing" at all, and all the specious arguments about "providing balance" or "providing liquidity" is all just so much rubbish."

Now for my counter rant!
Your first paragraph is basically incorrect imo.
This is why -

As an individual retail participant in the stock market, we only benefit or suffer from share price action. So buying and hoping for a SP increase is morally no different than selling and hoping for a SP decrease before buying again. Since we have virtually no control as an individual over the SP action neither situation is morally superior to the other. Some folk would say both are gambling!

Going long involves buying then selling to close a position, while going short involves selling then buying to close the position. Generally for a retail stock market participant in Australia if you wish to go short a CFD account is required. Since many folk don't have this sort of account they can't short a stock unless they sell out any holdings and go to cash. These folk as a rule are the ones that regard going short as immoral because they are basically unskilled and unable to do it themselves imo.

The facts of involvement in the stock market are that bear markets require shorting to preserve capital and make profit while bull markets require going long! Since bear markets and bull markets occur in cycles a retailer has two choices if they wish to remain financially viable in a bear market! Withdraw from the market or learn how to short!

Basically I regard your first paragraph as the same as saying anyone who takes the time to learn how to successfully participate in the both bear and bull markets is immortal. One thing that the LYC bear market has taught me is that many stock market participants fail to analyze what the market is doing, so remain in losing positions long after they should have closed them.