In order to consistently do well you can't be a person of principle, doing the right thing all the time. One of principle would have been shorting all day today and will keep doing so until he/she is proved right. By making money long Today you were part of a crime and are no different from those crooks on Wall Street. Now if you can trade with Charts ONLY (like I do?), completely oblivious to everything else, then by ignorance you are ok..
If I am a counter trend trader than yes, my trading principles hurt me in the market today. If I am a trend trader then NO, I followed my trading principles and was rewarded for doing so.
Maybe you are confused about what it means to be a trader in the first place. You are supposed to taking positions both long and short, not just be biased to one over the other. I did not see a good place to sell the ES all day (well from about 4am until close at least). What do you mean "the source of the market direction stains you"? Since when has being a short seller been some moral high ground to stand on? This makes absolutely no sense. I'm not sure I even understand the point of this thread at all.
Yeah, keep doing that and you'll be surrounded by principled monks sleeping on mats and eating rice for breakfast, lunch and, dinner. Great advice to give someone who is looking to shed the material trappings in this world but not sound trading advice, sorry.