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Strong central governments simply concentrate the tempting spoils for thieves and brigands to claim as "public servants".

No village would abide a thief or brigand, he would have been exiled at least.
-yatros from flatwater-

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Precisely: the people behaved themselves, or else. (We can ignore for now the fact that many tribal societies are, in fact, quite authoritarian.)
BTW, history shows that the tribal/agrarian model only works so long the various tribes/communities are too weak and/or poor to look longingly on their neighbors' belongings.

Once you get a group with the wealth to feed armies, and the desire to use them, then everybody else has to either surrender or, if they're going to fight back, follow suit.

The only guarantee against aggression by rich and powerful is the presence of a "moral and religious" population.
5 -r9-

Yartos, notice how our boy 'r9' pretends to agree that strong central governments are bad, but then advocates that "a moral and religious population" must "follow suit" in an authoritarian type government.

Oh, come on, son. Seriously: if you can't see that the difference between libertarianism and anarchy is the presence of John Adams's "moral and religious people," you're never going to understand anything.

The problem always becomes that of Tolkien's metaphor. No created being can wield absolute power - even with noblest intentions. "There is no one good", to quote a certain rabbi from Nazareth. Therefore, that government is best that governs [the] least [domain].

So... the original Thomas Paine was prescient... the Constitution was insufficient to restrain the weakness of men. Just as Israel demanded a king and suffered for it, our founders demanded a strong central government... We're simply witnessing the outcome of the law of "Nature's God".