“Under our present denomination of British subjects, we can neither be received nor heard
abroad: The custom of all courts is against us,
and will be so, until, by an independence, we take
rank with other nations ... you that oppose
independence now, you know not what you do;
you are opening a door to eternal tyranny.”

What is Thomas Paine trying to say ?

it foreshadows the theme of the paragraph and hints the topic that will be discussed in the paragraph!

polisit can also mean a body of citizens. in modern historiography, polis is normally used to indicate the ancient greek city-states, like classical athens and its contemporaries, and thus is often translated as "city-state". the body of citizens came to be the most important meaning of the term polis in ancient greece.

they became hereditary because there weren't many jobs for people in lower classes