Depends on in what context. Picking your battles and how you fight isn't being defeatist, its understanding how to play the game. Also plenty of people say this publicly for the simple reason that it's good OpSec. However there are "libertarians" who are basically just pretenders and also many who are just career "losers," in the sense that they just believe we are going to be slaves forever and they can only ever see the downside of literally anything. When something good happens, they just put it in the most pathetically negative context they can. they essentially identify as having lost.

Depending on who and in what context I have very different thoughts about what you bring up. I don't think there is a single answer because the issue is neither monolithic, nor are the people and reasons people make those sorts of statements.