You are in error trying to apply that passage to the current discussion. That passage is the state of affairs AFTER the restrainer is taken out of the way ‘and that wickedness be revealed’.
Nah, like Pascal - Barnes is right on target. Delusional (fraudulent) systems, like the one concocted by the Jesuit whore of Babylon, have been part of human nature for as long as there has been human nature.
2 Thessalonians 2:10And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
[And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness] There are two ideas here. The first is, that there would be deceit; and the other is, that it would be for the purpose of promoting unrighteousness or iniquity. The iniquitous system would be maintained by fraudulent methods. No one who has read Pascal's Provincial Letters can ever doubt that this description is applicable to the system of the Jesuits; and no one familiar with the acts of the papacy, as they have always been practiced, can doubt that the whole system is accurately described by this language. The plausible reasoning by which the advocates of that system have palliated and apologized for sins of various kinds, has been among its most remarkable features.
[In them that perish Among those who will perish; that is, among the abandoned and wicked. The reference is to men of corrupt minds and lives, over whom this system would have power; countenancing them in their depravity, and fitting them still farther for destruction. The idea is, that these acts would have special reference to men who would be lost at any rate, and who would be sustained in their wickedness by this false and delusive system.
[Because they received not the love of the truth] They prefer this system of error and delusion to the simple and pure gospel, by which they might have been saved.
(from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
[The world’s first city developed around its temples, and only later did palaces play a role. Its view of the world was conditioned, as in all ancient societies, by totalitarian religious belief. So the picture that comes into focus is that of a theocratic command economy, hierarchically organized, centrally directed, and regulated according to an ideology propagated by a priesthood, playing the role that, 5,000 years later, Soviet Marxists would call ‘the engineers of human souls’. Such was temple rule.Same ol' Ba'alshyte, different municipal toilet.As a way of life, the economic and social system the priesthood supported was, for a long time, strikingly successful.
]Kriwaczek, Paul. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization (p. 53). St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.