Thinking Deeper about First Amendment Rights

         The first amendment is very important.  It gives us the Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition.  Although I learned many interesting facts about this freedom, I still have many questions.  Most people think that free speech is the most important, but all of the other freedoms are really important, too.  The freedom of speech, however, has many limitations, but who gets to decide if someone broke those limitations?  That's one of my questions that I have been wondering for a while because of the government works and how trials are run.

          I have many other questions that are based around the first amendment and free speech.  Some of these question include:

•  If we suddenly started being run by a dictator, would we still have to follow the amendments, or would we have to follow new rules that the dictator makes up?
• In what types of situations would the freedom of religion be counted more then the law? In what situations would the law overpower the freedom of religion?
• What are some other cases in which the government had to decide if if one amendment is more important than the other?

These questions are just some of the many that may not pop into my brain right now, but there definitely some things that I do know and can research on.

          I did some research and found out that the U.S. supreme court makes these decisions on if a person broke the limitations on free speech or not.  The president is the one who appoints these representatives.  If we start being run by a dictator, we would probably have to listen to new rules that the dictator makes up; not the amendments.  Although, I could not find this information anywhere, my prediction is this because the dictator would probably start ruling because 1) they want to have full power and 2) they don't like normal rules that the country's citizens have to follow.  The freedom of religion would be overpowering the law if the law was requiring someone to follow a certain religion, that is not allowed.  Also, if someone was sentenced to believe in some religion for committing a crime, that is against free religion, in my opinion.  The law would overpower freedom of religion if a person had to hurt, or kill someone because of there religious beliefs.  This is because the amendments are there so that everybody is safe and wounding or murdering someone is the complete opposite of why the amendments even exist.  I could not find any other cases where they had to decide which amendment was more important, however, I know that the Commonwealth vs. Twitchell is a case just like that.  I feel very confident that I know more about the first amendment and i know more about that I know by asking these questions.

          ***If you know any answers to the questions that I had, please feel free to write a response about them in the comments.
Sources:
~http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/curricula/educationforfreedom/supportpages/L04-LimitsFreedomSpeech.htm
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_v._Twitchell