Rick DeNatale wrote:

>> Which answers the original question, because advocacy is what fanatics
>> do,
> 
> Actually not necessarily.

I agree that it is not necessarily the case. I was taking an extreme
position. I said that fanatics are advocates. I didn't say that advocates
are fanatics.

> Advocacy is simply supporting an idea, person, or cause, usually
> involving representing, speaking or pleading for that idea, person or
> cause.

That can be true, but it doesn't exhaust the possibilities.

> This is why lawyers are called advocates.

That is a funny usage (one with which I am familiar), because advocates are
often seriously emotionally committed to their causes, and lawyers cannot
afford that luxury if they are to be effective.

> Actually this is a bit 
> backwards since the word advocate comes from a term in Roman law for
> one who called witnesses, and morphed into meaning lawyer and then the
> more general term. And while some lawyers might be fanatics, many
> aren't and even those who are, some aren't fanatics for the ideas,
> persons or causes they advocate.

A lawyer who is a fanatic can't serve his client's interests, only his own.

-- 
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com