The difference is, C lets you control how much baggage you carry along and C++ doesn't. If I want a higher-level abstraction in C, I can usually implement it pretty well using inlines and macros, void and function pointers. Will it be pretty? Hell no. Will it have all of the syntactic sugar that the C++ version does? Nope. But it will work and be usable and most importantly the complexity/risk that it carries along will be exactly what I asked for (because I know how to manage it). Using a feature in C++ means carrying along all of the baggage from its dependencies and interactions with every other feature.

If programming languages were cars, it's like the dealer saying I can't add one option to the base model. No, I have to buy the top-of-the-line model with dozens of features I don't actually care about and will never use, costing far more and oh by the way that model has door handles that will cut you. That's about when I go to the Python dealership down the street, or just stick with good old C.