I prefer to say realist when someone mentions defeatist.
It Tells me their ideas are only ideas or theories being bantered about and not actually in place.
Most liberal ideas don't come into fruitation because for the most part their ideas are expensive and there's no way to fund them.
Many great ideas , aye and most any thing put forth by .gov , take away from personal freedom. Trying to impose their idea of a utopian society that if enacted would be so screwed that it would be no better than what is here now.