There are some platforms (such as embedded systems) where C really is the only choice. But if you do have a choice? Then I don't think using C is a good idea.
I'm not sure if "irresponsible" is the right word, though. I think developers underestimate the risks of C's unsafety and/or overestimate their ability to properly deal with it. Hanlon's razor[0] applies.
Much of the software that we all currently rely on is in C, for example all of the common operating systems are in C, and the reliability of these operating systems shows very clearly that C is nowhere near as inherently dangerous as you claim it to be.
That's never true. You can always use a higher-level, safer language that can compile to C. The result is C code but you never write it & avoid its pitfalls. Ivory language in Haskell, Ada-to-C, and Modula-2-to-C come to mind. Alternatively, you can use something even more primitive in a C subset or native assembly that it compiles to. OcaPIC or JavaCard come to mind. Astrobe Oberon is another for safe, low-level coding but not sure how its compiler works.
"This boot-loader, unfortunately, did not support loading any kernel images larger than 4 megabytes. This turned into a problem very quickly as it turns out that rustc is far less adept than gcc at creating succinct output. In fact, I was hitting this problem so early I was barely able to make a “Hello World” before having to stop working on rust code. Fixing this problem required rewriting most of the early boot code, all of which was x86 assembly ..."