Stop acting surprised. And for the love of all that is decent and holy, stop acting like the New England Patriots are victims.

Patriots minister of propaganda Bill Belichick is not the only conniving cheat in the history of humankind, but he has surely escalated chicanery and subterfuge to a new level.

Gamblers, point shavers, growth hormone injectors, gypsies, tramps and thieves, rejoice. You’re all off the hook. Belichick is the embodiment of such unspeakable evil that each of you appears to have the moral fiber of Tony Dungy.

The combined $750,000 fine levied upon Belichick and his employer is a pile of hooey. But so, conversely, are his apologists’ attempts to defend the indefensible.

Belichick deserves a lifetime supply of the blame, to the extent that I believe he should and will resign at the end of this season and probably never coach again. But there’s enough admonishment to go around for everyone.

Look, the world is headed for hell in a medicine kit. Sports is hardly immune.

Cork. Fuel additives. Fake birth certificates. You ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.

The games people play have arguably supplanted personal religious convictions as the No. 1 thing Americans get way too bent out of shape about.

If you want your team to win so badly that you are willing to call a complete stranger names on his blog that would make his mama roll over in her grave, how vehemently do you think the guy who’s paid $80 gazillion a year to lead his team to the promised land abhors losing?

Belichick cheated and lied because everybody cheats and lies.

An entire generation of baseball players injected itself in the butt because nobody in a position of authority had the stones to explicitly ban it for far too long.

One president said it was only foreplay. His successor says he just knew there were weapons of mass destruction over there.

I’ll have to stand in line behind five chain smokers just to pre-pay for gas on the way home today, simply because a hundred other clowns filed moral bankruptcy and thought it would be a cool idea to drive off without paying for $40 worth of petrol.

Before he died, Lyle Alzado confirmed that the Raiders ran a virtual anabolic steroid pharmacy in the 1970s. The Broncos’ offensive line stretched the definition of a cut block like Silly Putty in the 1990s.

Everybody steals playbooks and swipes signs today. So that makes it OK. Right?

Wrong.

Sports mirrors the moral septic tank where our society spends most of its time.

Every day it gets harder to watch TV. Harder to convince your kids that there’s any value to living a modest, decent, taxpaying life that transcends the norm.

And darn near impossible to wash off the dirt and the cynicism and just be a fan.

Belichick took our chosen escape, imperfect as it is, and welded the door shut.

He took the greatest decade in the history of New England professional sports and slapped a giant asterisk over it. He has flushed his own legacy and the sterling reputation of his once-model franchise down the hopper.

What’s worse, his chain of bad decisions is not the least bit stunning; his unrepentant, boorish and gutless response to getting caught, utterly predictable.

Thanks for nothing, Bill.