Another point worth making is that there is no right or wrong language in many cases. If you enjoy programming in BASIC, or C, or SNOBOL, or bash, or Python, go knock yourself out. There's really no good excuse for language snobbery.
If you need to program in a particular language at your place of work, or you want to learn a language to compete for a job then that's a different matter. ;-)
In spite of its warts the line numbered BASIC interpreter has it's good features, especially the immediacy of the interactive interpreter. The beginning programmer benefits hugely from this. Many languages boast about having this today, but BASIC had it all along until a more edit/compile/debug style BASIC became the norm.
I personally think that BASIC is an excellent first language, but people really should learn several different languages and be exposed to different programming ideas and styles. In addition to the Python and C++ you mentioned, people should consider Forth, Smalltalk, JavaScript, etc.
I do code in BASIC a lot, but I admit to using my own compiler called Liberty BASIC so I am biased. I do see a lot of people complaining that BASIC isn't modern but this just isn't true today. There are many versions of BASIC and a lot of them do have modern structure and scoping and some even add object oriented features. Python isn't the new BASIC. BASIC is alive and well today.
If you need to program in a particular language at your place of work, or you want to learn a language to compete for a job then that's a different matter. ;-)