xhonzi: from (http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Video-Game-Thread/post/508226/#TopicPost508226)
Has anything you've seen made you think it won't feature anti-caricatured-extreme-patriotism theme? Or at least, not in a way that won't come across as condescending to actual/literal patriots?
I'm still not sure what 2K/Irrational think of Objectivism. I can't imagine making the world of Rapture the way they did if they just wanted to dismiss Objectivism as a false philosophy. I don't think people who simply dismiss it would go into so much depth (bad pun maybe intended?). But I think it's also clear they're Objectivists either. Since they handled that pretty well (I'm not an Objectivist, but I agree with them more than I don't) maybe I shouldn't be so worried about how they will handle the themes of patriotism.
C3PX: from (http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Video-Game-Thread/post/508239/#TopicPost508239)
I never actually quite understood your concern about the Patriotism thing to begin with, but no, nothing I have seen has given me that indication. However, I tend to feel patriotism can be, and often is, a really dumb thing. I am the guy who has refused to say the pledge of allegiance since he was in the fourth grade because it struck him as weird to force children to express their undying devotion to stuff they may not believe in or even understand on a daily basis.
Ken Levine kind of explained the premise of the floating city as a means to fly around the world and show everyone how great and wonderful the US is. This brand of extreme patriotism (and the idea of American exceptionalism taken to an extremist levels) rub me the wrong way to the extreme, so I am not going to be offended if they tear that sort of behavior apart.
But you and I might be coming from very different angles on this.
2 things:
I watched the 15 minute demo and found it eased a lot of my fear. It seems that Columbia's socialists have been fighting/defeated her capitalists and you get to shoot at least as many reds as red staters. So I'm less convinced that it will be a gross misrepresentation of my own patriotism.
Which brings me back to my own patriotism. 
I view my country's exceptionalism much the way I view my own. I have the right to be as exceptional as I can be. I'm sorry if that makes anyone feel inferior (real or imagined), but that's just the way it works. However- I am only really exceptional if I'm exceptional all on my own, and not putting other people down, robbing their exceptionalism, or actively trying to keep them from being exceptional in the pursuit of my own exceptionalism, or to make me feel exceptional by comparison.
Since I am exceptional, it means you can be exceptional too, if you choose to be. I choose to not hide my exceptionalism under a bushel because I don't want to, and also because it might inspire or instruct other people to be exceptional as well. To hide it could be considered selfish by some, though I also don't advocate a law to punish those who don't share. To bring it back to our discussion: I wouldn't consider Columbia to be an example of American Exceptionalism taken to a distasteful extreme. The United States really were a shining beacon to the rest of the world at the early part of the 20th Century and other countries ignored the lessons they could have learned from the US at their own peril. It maybe hard to really appreciate that now, 100 years later, since a lot of countries/cultures have learned those lessons- they have become more "Westernized" and "Americanized" over the years and there isn't always as stark a contrast as there used to be. At the same time, there have been very active and very successful forces trying to make our country less exceptional and "more like everyone else" which is also rapidly narrowing that gap. Which I find sad.
I think I said all I wanted to say.
