Should public opinion be ignored

No, because people could change another persons mind. And other people (in public) can say something that you never thought of or came up with. And it can help a lot.

Another Answer:The odd thing about public opinion is that it is what someone else says it is. This means, it is a slave to what ever the reporting person wants it to be. We, as the public, do not have ready access to the polls that are used to gather public opinion and must rely on the poll takers and their treatment of the data. This means that we must be very cautious when we listen to "public opinion." We must take into consideration the biases of the reporter of it.

While it is fine to listen to what someone else says, we should consider the same data from as many different perspectives as possible before deciding on the validity of that data.