TEA Parties -- will they have the desired effect?

I understand the temptation to look on the scheduled Tax Day TEA Parties (and those scheduled on other significant dates in American History) as ineffective means to an end which is ultimately unattainable, thus as seeing them as simply going through the motions with no possibility of their having the desired effect. But let's not be too quick to judge their effects; the combined effects of the Tea Parties and of other similar efforts we are currently engaged in, shall we?

Also, I want to avoid comparing our modern TEA parties to the historical Boston Tea Party that the Sons of Liberty conducted in which they cast whole shiploads of the detested beverage into Boston Harbor. To make such a comparison is like comparing apples and oranges.

Historically our current TEA protests are more comparable to the decades' long struggle between the American colonies and the British government, in which the colonials engaged in a variety of means to protest the arbitrary imposition of taxes placed on various items, as well as the arbitrary claim to authority over the American colonies from the British ministry. During the course of this struggle the American colonists engaged in a variety methods of peaceful protestation finally culminating in events like the Boston Tea Party and the formation of the Continental Congress from whence the Declaration of American Independence ultimately came forth. A broad accounting of the events that ultimately led to America's declaring its independence from the British government may be found within the document itself, to wit:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

[...]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

So we see in these excerpts from the Declaration that our current methods of protestation follow closely the methods of our colonial forbears. And you'll have to excuse me for feeling a special connection between myself and our forbears, but as God is my witness I have been writing letters to Congressmen and Senators, as well as letters to the editor, etc., for umpteen years now reminding both our rulers and our brethren of the Declaration's pronouncement that "...and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves...but when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government...". And what have I generally received in return for my trouble? Basically the same treatment the founders received initially for theirs.

Now, had I my way about it the stage we're currently at in this struggle would have taken place fifteen years ago. But I have no control over that. Providence has a way of constructing events according to His timetable, not ours. And it's certainly not my place to questions His timing. My place is to hear the clarion call when it comes and to conduct myself accordingly.

So, will the combination of our efforts ultimately yield dividends favorable to the restoration of government of, by, and for the People, striking a proper balance between the various branches and spheres of our unique form of government? I don't think any of us can know that for sure, but I'm putting my money down that eventually they will. And as I said, I'm committed to conducting myself accordingly, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence and an appeal to Heaven for the rectitude of our intentions.