> The C and C++ philosophy starts with the premise "programmers know best and will never aim a shotgun at their foot and then fire

That's absolutely not the C/C++ philosophy. The C philosophy (I lost track of whatever the C++ philosophy is supposed to be several versions back) is that it's a mid-level language and lets you have pretty low-level access to the machine. With that comes the need for great caution, much like working in assembly.

It's not premised on the idea that programmers are infallible at all, but on the idea that code-checking and correctness is to be done through process rather than the language itself.